


dreams bring you home

by the_man_eating_cat



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fate, Red String of Fate, Reincarnation, centers around the dreamies and their beautiful bond, kimi no na wa inspired fic, only loosely based off kimi no na wa, sort of markhyuck centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:08:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25921831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_man_eating_cat/pseuds/the_man_eating_cat
Summary: “once in a while when i wake up, i find myself crying. the dream i must have had, i can never recall. but the sensation that i’ve lost something lingers for a long time after i wake up. i’m always searching for something, for someone. this feeling has possessed me i think from that day when the stars came falling. it was almost as if a scene from a dream. nothing more, nothing less… than a beautiful view.”(kimi no na wa, 2016)mark has dreams of a life he has not lived. donghyuck and his five best friends feel something missing in their lives. seven boys, searching for something, for someone, that they do not know. a small town in japan, a comet falling from the sky, and a binding thread of fate.this is a story of seven boys. of separation, and of finding one another again.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 18
Kudos: 77





	dreams bring you home

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone!  
> i told myself i'd post this in early august, and here we are mid-august smh. and if you're here from my demigod! au -- hi! thanks for coming haha.  
> at any rate, here is a fic i decided to start writing in celebration for the news of mark's return to nct dream! these seven boys hold my heart and always will, and i don't think any news has ever made me happier than the news that ot7 would return to us, so before i knew it, i was conceptualizing a story to celebrate that. this is, as i said, inspired by kimi no na wa (my favorite movie ever) -- though you don't necessarily have to have watched the movie to read this. i do a lot of stuff thats not from the movie (but i also steal some scenes basically directly from the movie,,). if you've watched the movie, this doesn't necessarily take place in itomori, but the towns are similar because i'm not creative. and i didn't name the town also because i'm not creative (sorry). the only name i took straight from kimi no na wa is 'goshintai' (which apparently means 'body of governing god'), because i wanted a name for the shrine.  
> as a side note, i wanted this to be more ot7-centric than it is, but convenience made it easier to switch only between markhyuck povs, so it's ended up rather markhyuck-centric haha.  
> there are surely flaws or sort of confusing parts of this fic, and i apologize for that. while i would not call it perfection, i am still proud of this work all the same. what i wanted to do most of all was simply celebrate how beautiful and wonderful i find nct dream, so if nothing else, i hope you can feel from this a sense of love for the dreamies. if you're here, i'm sure you share in that! so without further ado, i hope you enjoy!

for as long as he can remember, mark has had these dreams. 

when he wakes, he can hardly recall a thing that he saw. but he has the unshakable feeling that they are important, that they are something he should not be forgetting. all he can recall are flashes of an unfamiliar place and the distant echoing of people laughing. and the only thing the dreams leave with him when he wakes are the tears that fall down his cheeks, inexplicably and painfully. he has, for a moment, an unbearable sensation of losing something that is so dearly important to him. then it fades, and he is left with nothing but a vague awareness of loss that always keeps him searching for something, for someone, that isn’t there. 

this is something that he has mentioned to those close to him. but with everyone, including himself, lacking an explanation, he can do nothing but go about every day normally, with the occasional pang of sorrow in his chest. mark’s mother has romantically proclaimed that perhaps they are flashes of the future, signs of the soulmate he will one day meet. yet mark swears that he doesn’t dream of just one person -- he swears that what lingers in his mind when he wakes are echoes of multiple voices. perhaps, he is then told, he is just dreaming of someone else’s life; perhaps his eyes see that which most humans do not. and then he is told, with the magical and romantic exhausted, that perhaps he is dreaming of nothing at all, and it is nothing to worry about. 

but as mark gets older, the dreams become more powerful, more prevalent. they call to him, begging him to move to action, but he knows not what it is they want him to do. he doesn’t even know what he is dreaming of. but bit by bit, he sees more, remembers more. bright wooden floors, and shining lights above, and the gentle sound of someone singing him a song. he knows for sure that there are multiple people by his side. he knows that they are important to him, and he is important to them. but no matter how much he sees, he can never see their faces. 

when he wakes, he cries for longer than he used to. it is a strange sort of painful, to cry such powerful tears for people he does not know. it is, indeed, a different sort of empty than the ordinary person is acquainted with. 

on this particular night, he dreams of sand pressing into his toes. he can feel its warmth, can feel the way his feet sink into the sand. all of it is so vivid that, as much as he is aware that he is dreaming, he cannot completely believe it. he dreams of hands held in his, he dreams of running, running, running, wind in his hair and freedom in his heart. he dreams of standing at a bridge, sparkling water below, and he can feel himself yell something, in a delighted and exhilarated voice. as if he is proclaiming his existence, his life, the fact that he stands right here, right now; as if he is telling all the world around him that he is happy. voices join him, to yell something they know so well. he wishes, when he wakes, that he could know what it is they said. that he could know who had made him so happy. 

“did you cry again today?” he is asked by his mother (a question he receives often). 

he slides into his seat at the dining table, in their ‘cozy’ dining room. their small town in japan doesn’t provide much space for a family of four -- though with mark’s father always out at work, they’re more of a family of three anyway. his older brother, already seated at the table, gives him that stupid little smirk of ‘haha little baby mark cried again’, to which mark responds with a hard but loving kick to the shin. 

“i really think you should talk to someone about this,” his mother says. as they’re a korean family that used to live in canada until they moved for his father’s work, they speak in korean to one another, and are also quite the foreigners to this traditional japanese town. still, the people are kind, and they’ve been here for many years now. “there aren’t any good therapists in town,” his mother continues, and mark sighs to himself, “but i’m sure we could find someone in the city.” 

“i don’t need a therapist, mom,” mark says. “i’m fine.” 

“but you said they’ve been getting worse, right?” she asks, concerned. 

mark shrugs. “they’re dreams. it’s not like they affect my daily life.” 

she hums, relenting, but clearly reluctant. “well if you ever want to talk to someone about it --” 

“i know, mom,” mark says. then, gentler, “thank you for the concern.” 

she smiles, appeased. “i’ve been trying my hand at traditional japanese breakfast lately,” she tells them, pleased, and mark is happy for the change of topic as she pours him a bowl of miso soup. “some of the old ladies in town have been helping me learn.” 

mark and his brother exchange glances, amused, and with the hum of his warm daily life taking over, mark is able to push away the thoughts of his recurring dreams. 

“your mom told me you cried again.” 

at this comment from his best friend, johnny seo, mark can only sigh. “why does she feel the need to relay this kind of information to you?” he wonders. 

“well, i am four years older,” johnny says, grinning. “so obviously i’m supposed to take care of you.” 

mark scoffs. “you’re as childish as i am,” he says, elbowing johnny, who elbows him back. 

“come on,” johnny urges. “haven’t you been having these dreams a lot? they used to be pretty infrequent.” 

mark quiets, turning his gaze to the distant horizon before them. they’re sitting at the lakeside, water just barely brushing against their bare feet. the view of the water before him tugs at memories of his most recent dream. “even i know it’s a little weird,” mark says, to which johnny gives him a pointed look. “maybe more than a little,” mark amends. “but what am i supposed to do about it? i want to know more than anyone else why i’m having these dreams.” 

“i know,” johnny says, his tone understanding. “but…” he says slowly, leaning forward as if to gauge mark’s reaction, “i think i know someone who might be able to help.” 

mark gives johnny a look. “no matter what my mom said, i don’t need a therapist --” 

johnny laughs. “not a therapist, mark. just a friend of mine.” 

mark’s face scrunches up, but, giving johnny the benefit of the doubt, he says, “who?” 

“his name is nakamoto yuta. his parents are the caretakers of the shrine,” johnny answers. 

“are you… telling me i should turn to god?” mark asks, confused. it’s a strange suggestion, seeing as mark is generally the more religious of the two, and that both of them are actually christian. 

johnny rolls his eyes. “of course i’m not telling you to turn to god.” 

he pauses. 

“okay, i’m kind of telling you to turn to god.” 

mark raises an eyebrow. “wow,” he says. “this is new.” 

“listen,” johnny says, “there’s a myth attached to the shrine, and i think it might be the sort of thing you need. it’s not about the god aspect, really. i mean, i don’t have to believe in this god to think that this myth might be true.” 

“what myth?” mark asks. 

“here,” johnny says, standing. “i’ll tell you on the way.” 

“wait, we’re going right now?” mark asks, though he also stands. 

“when else?” johnny shoots back. he’s already picking up his shoes, and shaking his foot in an attempt to get water off of it. 

“i have school tomorrow!” mark exclaims. 

“and you’re a good kid who will probably get all his work done even if i take you on a little field trip,” johnny says. “i’m sure you’ll be fine.” 

“you can only say this because you’re a college kid,” mark complains, but he picks up his own shoes and follows after johnny. 

they walk for a while through the streets of town, pausing once to buy some ice cream. as they do, johnny talks mark through the myth of the shrine. 

“there’s more to it, that i’m sure yuta could tell you all about, but the general idea is that the shrine has been blessed. if you’re lost, literally, emotionally, or in some other way, you can leave something important to you in the shrine, and the ‘god of the shrine’ will help guide you home.” 

“so it is a god thing,” mark says. 

johnny shrugs. “lots of things are phrased like god things. doesn’t mean they have to be.” 

“so, what, you think it’s just magic?” mark asks. 

johnny gives him a little eyebrow wiggle. 

“is it sacrilegious to leave something in a different god’s shrine if i’m christian?” mark wonders. 

“you can apologize to god later,” johnny says. “this is just to give you some, uh, spiritual guidance. it’s, like, for your chi.” 

“i think that’s also a religious thing, just a little bit,” mark says. 

johnny huffs a breath out. “stop making this so complicated, mark.” 

“well, what’s your view of it then?” mark asks. 

“people put lots of myths behind things,” johnny says. “even if you don’t believe in a god, you can believe in their myth. because that shrine might not have been blessed by a god, but it might have the capability to help you out. whatever it is,” he gives mark a look, “this thing you have is more than just a minor problem. regardless of the method, you should try it out.” 

mark takes a bite of his ice cream and, after some thinking, relents. “i guess it couldn’t hurt to try.” 

johnny beams. “exactly, my man. now eat your weird pink sakura-flavored ice cream and lets go.” 

“actually, it kinda tastes like bubblegum,” mark says. 

there aren’t a lot of people in a small town in japan who dye their hair and pierce their ears. even mark and johnny, as the two ‘foreigners’ of the town, keep it pretty subtle (both of them with their natural hair colors, and johnny just sporting small earrings). people with traditional values aren’t generally the type to enjoy the children of their town ‘dressing like delinquents’, after all. 

so it’s interesting to mark that the son of a shrine family would have long hair dyed purple and tied into a ponytail, which does nothing to hide his many piercings. he greets them with a big grin, immediately bro-hugging johnny, and mark is a little in shock. 

“hey, dude,” yuta says, extending a hand to mark. “i’m yuta. i go to tokyo u with johnny.”

“ah, cool,” mark says, shaking his hand. he has to take a minute to adjust to yuta’s very strong cool-guy energy, but he finally returns his grin. “i’m mark.” 

“i’ve heard of you,” yuta says, leaning against the door frame (he’s still standing in his house, where mark and johnny went to find him). “you’re the other ‘token korean’ of this town.” 

mark nods. he and johnny usually speak korean with each other, but he’s not sure how yuta knows to speak korean. somehow, he doesn’t have the bravery to ask. 

yuta tells them to wait a sec, pops back into his house to tell his grandmother he’s heading out, then rejoins them outside, leading them onto the street. yuta’s house, among some of the older and more traditional buildings in this town (and also quite large -- mark wonders if shrine families are pretty rich), is detached from the shrine, which mark can see in the distance, at the top of a set of stairs. 

“you don’t have to wear the, uh, mika outfit?” mark asks. he really hopes he’s using the right term. he’s not exactly an expert on how japanese shrines work. 

“i’m not actually working today,” yuta says. “i’m just showing you guys around, so it’s fine. anyway, we’re not headed to the main body of the shrine -- the one you can see over there. we’re going to a sort of separate, more ancient area. we call it goshintai -- the body of the god. not a lot of people go there.” 

“ah. cool.” 

yuta chuckles. “you’re not super familiar with japanese culture in this regard, right?” 

mark gives him a sheepish look. “i’ve learned a lot about japanese culture since we moved, but this sort of thing is, uh…” 

“not really something you learn about, i’m guessing,” yuta says. “i get it. i wouldn’t even call myself hugely religious, honestly. but, i like the traditions.” 

“the traditions?” mark asks. 

yuta nods. “like, the dances, the rituals, the myths. whether these things have foundation in truth, whether these gods are real, there’s still a bit of love that comes in passing down traditions, and there’s history that you can see in the myths. it’s, like, interesting, i guess.” 

mark smiles. he can see a shine in yuta’s eyes, which translates through to his words, and rings clear in mark’s soul. 

mark gives johnny a look. the two of them share a smile, and in this moment, mark decides to trust in whatever this shrine might offer him. he doesn’t have to believe in the god -- he can believe in the souls that have passed down this myth, and put care into this place. 

“now,” yuta continues, “it’s a pretty long walk to reach the shrine, and i’m sure johnny gave you some useless watered-down explanation, so let me go a little deeper into the myths of this shrine.” 

mark laughs, johnny feigns insult, and yuta ignores him. 

“basically, we believe that there’s a way to leave parts of your soul outside of your own body,” yuta says, as he begins to lead them away. “it’s not in the sense that you lose pieces of your soul, so much as it is that the essence of your being rubs off on the things around you. you could also say that when two people become truly emotionally connected to one another, they exchange parts of their soul, so that neither lose anything, but they do gain something. but the idea is, there is a way to connect your soul to something or someone else. so when people feel lost, they can leave a piece of their soul in the shrine, and they will find their way onto the path that’s important to them. of course, people who come usually just pray, and there aren’t many people who often visit this part of the shrine. some people have left items behind, though. things that they feel are so important to them and so attached to their soul that a piece of themselves must be left behind in it. and whether you choose to pray or to leave something, what you’re really doing is asking for guidance. it can be a way to choose your next path, like where you should next go, or maybe what job you should take next. or,” he glances at mark, “maybe to find important people in your life.” he gives him a soft, knowing smile. “i’ve heard you have dreams?” 

“apparently everyone has heard,” mark mumbles awkwardly to himself, and johnny laughs. 

“some people say that dreams connect us to our past lives,” yuta continues. “does it ever feel like that?” he asks it so seriously, so sincerely, in such a way that mark feels not responding with the truth wouldn’t even be an option. 

mark sighs, prepares himself for answering. he hasn’t even really said this to his family, or to johnny. 

“it does,” he admits. “when i wake up, i feel like the world i live in isn’t the world i was born in. or at least, not the one i was meant to be born in.” 

yuta smiles knowingly, understandingly. “tell me what it’s like,” he says. 

“it’s like…” mark hesitates. johnny’s eyes are wide, listening intently, but when mark looks to him in concern, he just gives mark a hesitant but gentle smile. then yuta gives him a reassuring nod and, gathering himself again, mark continues on. “i keep remembering places i’ve never been, but that feel so familiar, or people that i’ve never met, who feel so important to me. even though i don’t know any of it, it feels so important. and i remember the sounds of laughter; i remember wooden floors and bright lights and someone singing a song. but it always slips away from me before i can really remember. before i know their faces, or where i was, or who i was -- if i was really even me. all i know is it’s important to me. or at least, it once was.” 

yuta nods. “as strange as it may feel, it’s possible these dreams really are visions from a past life.” 

“you think so?” mark asks. even after saying it out loud, he’s not sure even he himself believes it. 

yuta smiles. “it’s possible,” he says, lifting a finger, and pressing it into mark’s chest, “that in another life, these people and these places left such a strong impact on your soul that they embedded themselves into you, so that even in another life, you can’t help but be drawn to them. it’s possible that you, in turn, left yourself in these people, and that’s why your connection with them remains in the form of dreams now.” 

his finger against mark’s chest feels like a lighter starting a fire, sending a spark of life through mark’s whole being as he takes in his words. to be connected to other people in such a deep, everlasting manner, something that transcends even lives -- it feels impossible. yet it still feels real. and when he thinks of his dreams, he feels it might even be true. 

“so,” yuta says, “now you can try to find that path again. you can try and find out whether this is true at all. there might really be a way to find the answer to all of these questions.” he smiles. “isn’t it worth it to try?” 

mark nods numbly, but then says, “i --” and pauses. he’s not sure what he wanted to say: to voice reluctance, or a question, or something else. finally, he just says, “i didn’t bring anything to leave.” 

“you can just pray, too,” yuta says. “or you can leave a lock of your hair, maybe.” 

“hair?” mark exclaims. yuta starts to giggle, and mark frowns (or tries to). 

“come on,” yuta says. “we’re almost there.” and he leads them running up the rest of the path, a grin on his face, towards the top of the hill they’ve been walking up, through to the trees to where a clearing waits. from here, elevated above the rest of the town, mark can see the blinking lights of this town. he can spot what he thinks is his high school, hidden far in the distance (he looks for his house, but it’s too small to spot from here.) 

and in front of him in this clearing stands the shrine. yuta leads the way inside, clearly familiar with the area, while mark and johnny soak in the sights. mark is somewhat familiar with the main part of the shrine (he’s passed it a fair amount of times, including earlier when he and johnny went to find yuta), but this area is different. it’s really more like a small cave, the entrance tall enough only for them to go through, and wide enough for maybe ten people to fit inside at the most. there’s nothing much of note inside it, except for two little statues at the entrance, and the little altar at the back of the cave where one would pray.

“you can do whatever feels right,” yuta tells him. “that’s usually more than good enough.” 

mark nods at him, unsure of what to say. he steps forward towards the altar, at a loss for actions, and awkwardly kneels. he claps his hands together, like he’s seen people do at shrines in anime, and hears snickers behind him.

for a while, he just sits there and thinks. it doesn’t feel right to pray here, seeing as he doesn’t really believe in the god of this shrine. so he studies the shrine, takes it in, feels the energy of it, the care that has gone into it. he tries to imagine the souls there, the ones that have come and that have left their own marks. he tries to imagine the people who have come here, who have left some part of themselves and hoped to find their way. there must be so many lost souls in the world. he wonders if any of them really managed to find their path. 

he places his hand on the earth, and tries to feel beyond the dirt and stone and into the hearts, the souls, that have left themselves here. he can see, set up in the shrine, items that have been left. there’s a ring, now dull with age, and the small figurine of what mark thinks is a god. there are even flowers, though he’s not sure if that’s decoration or an item. 

every movement he makes here is on a whim -- the way he touches the earth, the way he studies the items. he doesn’t dare to touch those, because those belong to someone else, but he is struck so strongly by the need to leave something, and he suddenly feels so certain that he must. and so, still on a whim, still without really thinking, his fingers trace themselves across the red braided cord bracelet he wears on his wrist. he has worn it for years, never missing a single day. it’s been carefully, somewhat clumsily, woven by himself when he was a child. 

this, he thinks, would carry a piece of his soul. 

and so, he removes it, gentle and careful with every movement. he places it on the small altar, and takes a moment to rest on his ankles, to press his hands against the earth again. 

he cannot pray to this god, so instead he thinks,  _ to the lost souls who have made their way through here, please help guide me to what it is i am missing. help me find the truth.  _

with that, he stands, turning to yuta and johnny. they nod at him, and somehow all of them seem to feel this need to stay silent, because none of them speak as they exit the shrine. even for a while after that, they are silent, until they have walked far enough from the shrine that the spell seems to be broken. 

“you left your bracelet?” yuta asks, when the silence has cleared away. 

mark nods. “i’ve had it for so many years, i figure if anything has a part of my soul, it’s that.” 

“i do always see you wearing it,” johnny notes. “was it a gift? or, like, a good luck charm?” 

mark shakes his head. “actually, it’s just something i made myself when i was a kid. to this day, i don’t really know why. but i always feel like i have to wear it. i guess… i always felt like i’d need it one day, maybe?” 

“seems like you did, then,” yuta says, smiling. 

“well,” mark sighs, “let’s just hope it works.” 

“good luck, mark,” yuta says. 

“thanks,” mark smiles. 

they walk the rest of the way to yuta’s house, talking casually about anything that isn’t important (and isn’t related to mark’s dreams). once they arrive, yuta gives them a big grin, discretely wishes mark good luck again, and then heads back inside to make dinner for his grandma. 

the sun is already setting, so mark and johnny make their way back to mark’s house (because johnny insists that, as the older of the two, he must make sure mark gets home safe) as quickly as they can. 

“for what it’s worth, mark,” johnny says, when they’ve reached mark’s house, “i hope you find your answer. i couldn’t claim to know everything that’s going on with you and your dreams, and clearly i haven’t known everything, but i really hope it works out.” 

mark smiles. “yeah,” he says, “thanks. i hope so too.” 

leaving that somewhat uncertain hope in the air, the two of them part ways, and mark spends the rest of the night doing his homework, trying not to let his mind stay focused on the events of the day, or the place on his wrist where his bracelet used to be. he goes to bed that night feeling wide awake, like a child the day before a field trip. his mind replays the events of the shrine, and the events of his own dreams, going round and around until eventually he falls asleep thinking of distant shores and people he wants to finally know. 

after a vague, restless sleep, mark opens his eyes. 

he blinks them twice, bleary and confused, and then suddenly sits up very quickly, shock running through his veins, as he processes that he has no idea where he is. 

after a moment of taking in the scene around him, he realizes that he’s inside of goshintai, but he’s not sure why. he certainly doesn’t know  _ how. _ he thinks, at first, that he must still be dreaming, but no matter how he pinches or slaps himself, he doesn’t wake. 

there are people around him, passing in and out of the small shrine. there’s something, though mark blames it on vision blurred by weariness, strangely translucent about them. he doesn’t recognize any of them, but they all look to be just a bit older than him. none of them take note of him. in fact, when someone steps too close and bumps into him, their shoulder goes right through him. 

that’s when mark screams. 

_\-----_

loud footsteps come marching up the stairs, and donghyuck’s five friends look up as he comes storming into the lobby, slamming his hands onto the table where jisung, chenle, and jaemin are all seated. he holds up two fingers and says, “two words. history. field trip.” 

“that’s three --” 

“shut up, chenle.” 

“none of us are history majors,” renjun says from where he sits at a nearby table with jeno. “why would we go on a history field trip?” 

“doesn’t matter what major we are -- anyone can sign up,” donghyuck says. “also, it’s in japan.” 

the others exchange glances. renjun looks to him, shrugs, and says, “okay, and?” 

“come on, you guys,” donghyuck says, rolling his eyes. “japan. next week. don’t you realize who else is in japan next week?” 

realization sets into his friends’ eyes, as donghyuck grins wide. “that’s right, bitches. i already got some friends to score six spots on the field trip for us, so now it’s time for us broke college kids to see an exo concert.” 

there are six of them: lee donghyuck, huang renjun, lee jeno, na jaemin, zhong chenle, and park jisung. there are six of them, and there always has been. ever since they were naught but wee little boys, they’ve been together. it was donghyuck, jeno, and jaemin first -- just three eight-year-old neighborhood kids who hung out all the time. then it was jisung, the little brat that donghyuck approached because he looked like he never wanted to go home, and donghyuck could kind of understand that feeling. then came renjun and chenle, chinese kids in a foreign place, making do with what they had. and with that, there were six of them, just six kids and their kind of fucked up lives. and when no one else would hold them up, they held up each other. they made it through the shittiest parts of being alive, together. 

they named themselves ‘dream’. it’s a sort of childish name, or at least it comes from a childish place, full of that idealistic naivete that only a group of ten year olds sitting in the park playground can have. but it’s special to them, and it’s true; it always will be. they are each other’s dreams. in the dark, in the lonely night, when it seems that shadows are never ending, and they will never find their way home, they have each other. donghyuck has come to believe that, by the sides of all these incredible and beautiful people, even dreams themselves will come true. 

and ‘dream’, they are a family; they have been since those childhood years, and they’re happy with that. they always will be. so it’s hard to admit to, and it’s hard to discuss, the feeling of empty space. the way, sometimes, their eyes linger on empty rooms, or their hearts linger in empty silences, and it feels strangely as if someone is supposed to be there to fill it. as if maybe someone once was. they cover up those moments, push them aside, but they can’t truly forget about it. they are caught in this tumultuous wave, scared to think about it too long, but scared to never have an explanation. 

in this way, they live through each day. and donghyuck wouldn’t trade the others’ presences for anything; he wouldn’t give them up for all the world. but all the same, every now and then, he feels himself searching for something, for someone. it pulls at his heart, leaves him feeling empty and drained, and there are nights where he doesn’t sleep at all, lost in memories that don’t exist and emotions that have no explanation. when it passes, he is left with nothing but the morning light, his dried tears, and this dulled pain in his heart that whispers, ‘something is missing’. 

sometimes he considers saying something about it. he’s sure all of them do. he considers saying, “should we talk about this?” or maybe, “why is it that sometimes i feel like my heart is ripped out of my chest because there’s someone who isn’t here, but i have no idea who?” 

instead, he stays quiet. because this sadness, this deep pain, is some strange foreign entity, something he can’t comprehend. he doesn’t know its cause, can’t imagine an explanation. but every now and then, vague and so distant that he thinks perhaps he had not truly thought it, or perhaps it was not a thought of his own, a thought crosses his mind that is something like this: 

_ he would understand.  _

and then he wonders -- he? who is he? and finds himself struck to the core with confusion and fear and sadness all at once. there have been specific moments where he recalls this happening clearly -- once, while trying to pick a song to sing for an audition, he happened to see the song ‘love yourself’ by justin bieber, and the thought  _ he’d like this song  _ crossed his mind. 

he sang that song for the audition. 

and when his friend told him about a history field trip to japan, the thought that first crossed his mind was not anything about the exo concert, or even that he’d love to go to japan. instead, it was: 

_ he needs us.  _

after that, donghyuck couldn’t push away the powerful feeling that he and the others had to go. so, covering it up as a way to see exo on tour in japan, he pitched the idea to the others. all the while, he thought:  _ maybe now, i can find out who he is.  _

“so what is this field trip about, anyway?” jaemin asks donghyuck. the six of them are sitting in jaemin and renjun’s dorm room (which is a bit small for all six of them to be in there all at once as they are). 

donghyuck looks up at jaemin (seated on the bed) from where he’s sitting on the floor next to chenle, playing battlegrounds, along with jeno and jisung. donghyuck has already lost. “something about, uh -- remember that comet? three years ago, it was all over the news?” 

“right, the one that hit japan,” jaemin nods. “we all saw it happen on tv together.” 

“yeah, we’re going to visit the town that was hit,” donghyuck says. “it’s to study the relationship between, like, mythology and history, i guess? course, it’s not actually a historical event quite yet, but it was a pretty big deal.” 

“did mythology have something to do with that?” renjun asks. he’s been doing his homework at his desk, reading some book about old dead artists that donghyuck couldn’t care less about, but the conversation has apparently gotten his attention. 

“well there’s a shrine in the town -- it used to be run by some family, but i don’t remember who. anyway, they passed on a lot of the town’s legends and such, carried on tradition, all that. a lot of their stuff was destroyed after the comet hit, but it’s suspected that they knew something of the comet’s coming. that’s why, the day the comet came, they actually held a festival,” donghyuck explains. 

“but if they knew about the comet, wouldn’t they have done something to escape?” chenle asks, even with all his attention on the game. 

donghyuck, who didn’t pay enough attention to his friend talking about the event (history is just too boring), shrugs. “i think it was something like, they didn’t have all the information? something about a fire and losing documents. i don’t know.” 

“what dedication you’ve put into this trip we’re all going to take part in,” renjun comments, flipping a page of his book. 

“okay, who got you the exo tickets?” donghyuck shoots back. 

“thank you, oh wonderful donghyuck,” renjun singsongs, and the others echo the praise.

donghyuck scoffs. “that’s what i thought. anyway, if you want to hear more about it, just ask sicheng when we leave.” 

chenle and renjun both turn immediately (chenle, even while playing), and exclaim, “sicheng’s coming?” 

“yeah, who do you think got us the spots on the trip?” donghyuck says. chenle and renjun exchange grins, and donghyuck laughs at them. the two of them have always admired sicheng, an upperclassman from their club for chinese kids. “the hotel rooms are two or three people per room, so maybe you two losers can try and fight for the chance to room with sicheng.” 

the two of them begin arguing immediately, and donghyuck takes the chance to slide into chenle’s spot and steal his place in the game.

“i’ll room with jisungie,” says jaemin, who has always wanted a chance to room with jisung, while jisung just makes a face in response. 

“it’s you and i then,” donghyuck tells jeno, who grins. the two of them are roommates already, anyway. 

“who takes the loser?” jeno asks, looking at the quarrelling renjun and chenle. 

donghyuck shrugs. “he might not room with either of them anyway.” jeno snickers. 

“if chenle loses, we’ll take him,” jaemin says. 

“what about me?” renjun snaps, even while he’s fighting with chenle, because he apparently can hear the conversation. jaemin sticks his tongue out at renjun, who glares at him. chenle takes his distraction as an opportunity to tackle him down to the ground. 

“ah,” donghyuck sighs. “kids.” 

less than a week later finds the six boys on a plane ride to japan. donghyuck and jeno are sitting together, each with an earbud in one ear, listening to a playlist of japanese exo songs. renjun, who won the fight against chenle, is sitting next to sicheng and his friend kun (a member, and leader, of that chinese club), and jaemin and jisung are in the seats by the window horizontally across from jeno and donghyuck. in total, there’s about twenty of them going on this field trip, and the whole thing is student run. in the first place, it was suggested by kun, sicheng, and a couple of other students, and they had to try and get support for it. so in a way, donghyuck and the others are actually helping them by being here. 

“so, donghyuck explained some of this trip to us, but what are we doing exactly?” renjun asks kun. 

“well, the comet that hit japan three years ago was a big issue when it happened, but people have mostly forgotten about it now,” kun says. “but it’s always been a really interesting concept to us,” he says, nodding his head towards sicheng and some of the others. “the town that was hit was a very traditional town, and a lot of those traditions were kept by a certain shrine family. there was a fire centuries before the comet, and a lot of the history was erased, but they say that this shrine family knew that something important was going to happen on october fourth, when the comet hit.” 

“some people claim that the old documents that were burned in the fire would’ve included a way to save people from the comet,” sicheng adds. 

“a way other than just running away?” donghyuck asks. 

kun laughs. “well, maybe. we don’t really know -- and we can’t, without all the information that they once had. there aren’t many people who believe that sort of thing, anyway. but we’re going to try to look around, see what we can find in the stories and the buildings that remain.” 

they continue to chat after that, about things donghyuck cares little about, and he lets himself go into a haze of airplane-hum and exo music. his heart beats out an unsteady rhythm every time he thinks of their destination, every time he wonders what -- or perhaps who -- awaits them. he even looks around their plane, wondering if maybe whatever or whoever he’s been looking for might be here, right under his nose. but there’s no one and nothing in sight that causes him to feel the way he feels when he thinks of where they’re going, and he knows that if the answer to their unspoken confusion and concerns could be found so nearby, the six of them would have found it long ago. 

he’s still sitting in this haze of sound and music and nerves when the plane lands, and he feels as if his legs are wobbling when he gets off the plane, for more reasons than an extended amount of time spent sitting. 

“we’ll take a bus the rest of the way to the town,” kun tells them, as they head towards customs. “everyone stick together, and tell me if there’s anything you need.” 

there’s a chorus of, ‘yes, sir’s, and, ‘yes, mom’s, and kun rolls his eyes good-humoredly. with him at their head, there’s not even a need for teacher supervision. they pass through customs, get their luggage, and board the bus with kun leading it all, and counting heads once they’re on the bus. donghyuck sits quietly, staring out the window, watching the streets and the buildings pass by in a blur. ever so slowly, they fade from view, until the street is gravel, the scenery fields and grass. they pass through a long stretch of farmland, and donghyuck can see the town before they pass the entrance -- he can see the rubble, see how it’s been abandoned. 

the town looks like it must have once been beautiful. some of the outermost buildings are fairly unharmed, only eroded by time and whatever bugs must have infested them by now. donghyuck can see the way all the grass has overgrown, and he can see the signs of life that is long gone. there are some homes still left standing, and even a park where kids must have gone to play. but much of it has been destroyed by the comet, leaving nothing but a crater and destruction in its place. among the buildings still left standing is a high school, which is where their group stops. 

“we’ll visit the shrine tomorrow; for now, go ahead and explore whatever you want. get used to the town, maybe see if you can find anything interesting,” kun tells everyone. call me if you need anything, and try not to get lost. we’ll meet back here at five pm, so,” he checks his phone, “you have three hours.” 

“can we go anywhere?” donghyuck asks. 

“sure thing,” kun says. as others on the field trip begin to separate into their own groups and walk around, kun turns towards donghyuck. “no one really owns any of the land here anymore.” 

“no one’s tried to rebuild it?” renjun wonders. 

“it would difficult to rebuild,” sicheng says, joining the conversation. “there’s not much land left, really.” 

with those questions answered, kun and sicheng head off with some of their friends, though they offer to take the boys around if they want. the six of them say no -- as much as they may admire kun and sicheng, they’re comfortable on their own. 

“where should we go?” jeno asks. 

“i’m guessing there’s no tourist shops,” chenle says. 

there are a couple paths leading away from the school, to the left and to the right. donghyuck tries to peer down each path available to them, and finally, he turns to the others and says, “let’s try ignoring the paths.” 

“on our first day here?” jaemin asks with a smile. “sounds fun.” 

they pick a random direction and begin walking as they please, talking and laughing among themselves. they walk across rock and grass, practically intertwined into one after the three years the land has had to grow on its own. for some time, they don’t pay attention to much around them, and before they know it, a large lake that they could see in the distance comes closer into view. for the most part, they’d been walking around it, but it’s really a rather large lake. 

they all exchange glances, and with a grin jaemin says, “let’s go check it out!” 

before long, they find a way past the many trees and into the lakeside, where the gentle sound of water greets them. from here, they can also see a second lake, where (as they were told earlier by kun) the water spilled into the crater left by the comet. there’s a little dock where one might have been able to step across and even fish, but it’s broken apart, most of it submerged under water. there are trees and grass all around, and as they walk around the side of the lake, donghyuck notices what must have once been a path leading up to it, now covered up by grass and wilted leaves and petals. after the comet hit, the ground here must have all died out, but now, the land has had years to grow back. the trees have shed their leaves and their blossoms, and they have fallen upon the land and erased the footsteps of lives now passed. 

donghyuck feels something in his chest, in his throat, building and building until he fears that perhaps it will envelop him entirely. he can’t say if the others feel the same, but no one speaks, and there’s something in his friends’ eyes, that he thinks is in his eyes too. it’s a look so overcome with emotion that it is impossible to pick out what exactly they are feeling. 

donghyuck walks slowly around the lake, as if soaking in the nature. it’s like if he feels enough of the life still here, he might find traces of the life that’s been left behind. but he stops suddenly, hit by an overwhelming feeling that someone is here. or that someone  _ was  _ here. he’s right at the edge of the lake, close enough to dip his feet into it, and the emotion is so powerful that he almost breaks down right there. he feels his hands shake, his eyes burn, and he can’t understand why, and it’s too painful, to feel so much and not even understand where it comes from. 

_ where are you?  _ he thinks. he can feel someone so strongly, feel their presence as if they are there right now, as if he could reach his hand out and touch their shoulder. 

and yet no one is there. 

he looks up, and jeno is a few feet away from him, giving him a questioning look. hesitantly, pushing down the powerful surge of emotion, he shakes his head, trying to tell jeno he’s okay. 

“this place is beautiful,” jaemin says, standing some ways behind him, taking in the view. 

“you can barely tell anybody’s lived here, though,” chenle notes. 

it does feel like a place of wildlife, like in the emptiness that humans left, nature took over. donghyuck can hear the life all around them, the animals that must have made this place their home after the comet hit. 

some combination of the sights and the emotions feels too much for him, and donghyuck says to the others, “let’s look around somewhere else.” they all nod their heads, and donghyuck thinks perhaps they’re all feeling a little solemn. 

they leave without another word. 

after some more exploration (they look around some of the houses, and chenle suggests looking inside, but somehow it feels rude to walk into strangers’ houses -- although some of the others on the trip do it), they meet up back in the center of town, where kun and sicheng are already waiting with some of their friends. once everyone makes it back, they all board the bus again, and this time they head to the hotel where they’ll be staying. 

“by the way, kun,” donghyuck says, leaning over so he can look at the seat in front of him, where kun and sicheng are sitting, “are you gonna have any open spots in your room?” 

“oh, we haven’t really divided up rooms yet, have we?” kun says. “we have nine rooms -- seven for two people, and two for three. i figured we wouldn’t have too much trouble deciding room assignments, though.” he glances at donghyuck. “why do you ask?” 

donghyuck grins, glancing at renjun and chenle. “are you interested in taking on one of my silly little friends to stay with you and sicheng?” 

kun smiles amused, and looks to sicheng. “we don’t mind,” says sicheng, and renjun silently makes a ‘victory’ pose. chenle (lightly) punches him in the side. 

“so you guys have rooms decided?” kun asks. 

“me and jeno,” donghyuck says, “and jaemin, chenle, and jisung.” 

“then that’s our two three-person rooms.” kun says. “everyone else can double up.” 

with that decided, the group splits up into their rooms once they arrive and have eaten dinner. kun lets them all have rooms next to each other, so that it’s: kun’s room, jaemin’s room, and donghyuck’s room, in that order. once inside his room, donghyuck collapses onto the bed by the window, letting out a deep sigh. jeno plops down onto the other bed, and even without turning towards him, donghyuck can tell that jeno is looking at him. 

“are you alright?” jeno asks. 

“yeah, course,” donghyuck says. “why?” 

“you seemed a little off today. every now and then.” 

“dunno. guess i’m just tired today.” 

jeno says, “is it --” but then cuts himself off, hesitating. donghyuck would question him, but he can feel jeno’s uncertainty about the words, and has a feeling he knows what it’s about. 

“don’t worry about it,” he says, softly. it’s gone unspoken that this subject would, well, go unspoken, and he doesn’t feel ready to go against that yet. they’ve always kind of known, though -- or perhaps the two of them have known best, with the time they spend together -- that donghyuck is struck by these strange feelings the most of all six of them. 

“okay,” jeno says, a gentle acceptance, and they don’t say another word about it. 

the next morning, they meet up with everyone else in the lobby of the hotel, where they have a quick breakfast. then it’s back to the bus once again, where kun tells them their plans for the day. 

“we’ll visit the shrine when we arrive, and then it’s free time for the rest of the day again. while we’re at the shrine, try to pay attention to anything that might relate to the comet or the mythology.” 

someone asks kun about the shrine, which launches him into a history explanation that donghyuck just barely pays attention to. 

“the shrine used to be run by the ‘nakamoto’ family,” kun says. “it has a main body, where they put on a lot of traditional events. it’s also very near to the family’s home. there’s also a separate area of the shrine, known as goshintai, which most people didn’t visit. that radius of the comet didn’t reach that part of the shrine.” 

“is the rest of the shrine still standing?” someone asks. 

“no, the main body was hit -- as was the family home,” kun answers. “and as for the story behind the shrine, it’s said their god would guide lost spirits home. they did dances, as many shrines do, and they apparently valued the act of making braided cords. it was also generally the women of the family who upheld much of the traditions.” 

“why braiding cords?” donghyuck asks, suddenly paying attention. his thumb brushes absent-mindedly against a bracelet he wears around his wrist. 

“it’s said to be an act of threading souls together,” kun answers. “it’s a representation of human connection. red thread, especially, has been a part of many different myths. if you’ve ever heard of the read thread for soulmates, it’s similar to that. it’s even said that if people were to die with red thread wrapped around their wrists, they could be reincarnated into the next life together. although that’s actually a different myth.” 

there’s something cold in donghyuck’s chest. it’s as if he’s frozen, and yet his heart is beating too fast, too hard against his chest. he looks at jeno by his side, and his eyes are wide too, unblinking as he stares at the bracelet around his own wrist. 

all six of them have one. they made them years ago, made them with each other. donghyuck barely remembers why -- they had just suddenly decided to do it. right now, though, it feels as if the thread is warm against his wrist. telling him, perhaps, that something is happening. or perhaps telling him that he is getting close. 

the shrine is far from the entrance to the town, and they walk a long way to reach it. they stop at the main body of the shrine first, although it’s really just the ruins of the shrine. they walk around, kun and the others taking notes. sicheng explains something about the history or the mythology to renjun and jeno, while donghyuck can’t be bothered to pay attention to more history facts. he wanders around, amongst the rocks and the broken wood, and he thinks about the red bracelets. he wonders what it means, what anything means. he’s so tired of things not making sense. 

once everyone’s done looking around, they head to ‘goshintai’, which is yet another long walk away (albeit not as long). this area, they find, is actually a cavernous area. it holds some strange, almost mystical feeling to it, as if maybe it doesn’t belong in this world. since it’s so small, they take turns walking through the shrine, and donghyuck and the others offer to go at the end. they haven’t come here to look at the history like everyone else, after all. 

when they finally go in, with no one inside but the six of them, the first thing donghyuck does is a double take. 

he stares, blinks his eyes, and then shoves the nearest person (chenle) so hard he almost falls down.

“tell me,” donghyuck says, “am i hallucinating him?” 

and he points towards the corner of the shrine, where a wispy figure is awkwardly pressed against the wall. the figure blinks at donghyuck and chenle. 

“hello?” it -- he asks. 

that’s when donghyuck screams. 

_\-----_

when the strange boy screams, mark’s just a little bit insulted. it’s not as if he’s on the ceiling or all messed up or anything. 

the first of the boys to recover from the shock of seeing mark (though, really, mark feels like he deserves to be the most shocked here) is a boy with light brown hair and, mark learns, a soft voice. he calls outside, probably to the people who had come here with them, “we’re fine! donghyuck just stubbed his toe.” 

_ donghyuck,  _ mark thinks. the name strikes something within him, like a bell ringing faintly in the back of his mind, and he wishes he knew why. more than that, though, he wishes he could know why he’s even here. 

he clears his throat awkwardly, trying to feel brave. “who are you?” he asks, and his voice only shakes a little. he speaks in korean, as have all the strange people who have been walking into the shrine -- who have also been, for whatever reason, acting as if mark isn’t there. 

well, ‘whatever reason’ isn’t necessarily right. the truth is, he knows. he has yelled in their faces, tried to reach out to them, to touch them, but no one sees him, and no one feels him. 

no one, except for these six boys. 

“who are  _ you?” _ the boy who screamed counters. 

“kun said no one else was in here,” the soft-voiced boy adds. 

“are you a ghost?” a tall but awkward-looking boy asks, and his voice shakes oh-so slightly when he says it. he looks ready to run at any moment. 

“i’m not a ghost!” mark says. 

“you look like a ghost,” another boy says, brow furrowed in suspicion. despite the situation occurring, mark can’t help but stare at his pikachu sweater. it even has a hood with the ears. “you’re all wispy like one.” 

mark glances down at himself, sees everything looks the same as it always has, and looks back up at them. “no, i don’t. you’re the ones who look wispy,” he says, and it’s true. just like every other person who’s entered the shrine today, there’s something wispy about these six boys. he pinches himself again, as he has many times, just to make sure he’s really not dreaming. “what the hell is going on?” he mutters to himself. 

“you still haven’t told us who you are,” says yet another one of the boys. he has a kind face, and mark feels like he could hold a discussion with this guy. on the other hand, verdict’s still out on some of the rest. (especially the screaming kid.) 

“my name’s mark,” says mark. “what about the rest of you?” 

they all glance at each other, and then shrug amongst themselves and look back to mark. 

“i’m jeno,” says the nice boy. 

“jaemin,” says a boy with a pretty face (very pretty). 

“i’m chenle!” pikachu sweater says. 

“i’m… jisung,” says the awkward boy, who still seems ready to run. 

“renjun,” the soft-voiced boy says. 

“donghyuck,” answers the screaming kid, though he’s staring at mark with wide eyes. there’s something in his expression -- something mirrored in his friends’ expressions, but not as strongly as it is in his. and mark can kind of understand it, because there’s a weight in his gut, heavy enough to distract him from his fear at this strange situation. it’s like he can hear the world’s quiet, knowing whisper, as it tells him,  _ here it is.  _ but mark doesn’t know what it’s referring to at all. 

there’s a silence in the cave, so unbearably awkward with everything that’s happened. now that they’ve all introduced themselves, it seems none of them know exactly what they should do or say now. 

“so, uh,” mark says, just out of a desire to break the silence. “what are you all doing here?” 

they look amongst themselves, and he notices now how outnumbered he is. it’s a terrible feeling, being one guy, confused all on his own, versus six people all together, plus their team of friends outside. he just hopes nothing happens that will require him running out of here. 

“we came here to visit,” answers donghyuck. 

“oh,” mark says. “but you don’t look like you’re from the town. and you speak korean. why’d you come here?” 

again, they look at each other -- this time with wide eyes, like they’ve realized something. 

“mark,” jaemin says slowly, “where are you from?” 

mark furrows his brow. “um, i live in this town,” he says, and he so wishes he could understand why they’re giving him those looks. they look concerned, confused -- maybe even sympathetic? mark has never been so confused in his life. 

immediately, they all gather together, huddling up like football players and whispering amongst themselves. mark suppresses a deep sigh; he just wants to go back home and lay in his bed. they spend a lot of time whispering amongst each other, so mark starts looking around the shrine again. he peeks out the entrance of it, but for some reason can’t see anyone on the outside. he’s not sure where these guys’ friends went, or if they’re just out of sight, but this is maybe a good sign for him if he really does need a quick escape. 

still, he doesn’t want these kids to be abandoned by their friends, so he turns around and says, “hey, where have your friends gone?” 

“what?” donghyuck asks. 

chenle walks over to the entrance with mark to look outside, then frowns at mark. “what are you talking about?” he says. “they’re right there.” 

mark looks outside. still, no one is there. he looks back to chenle, who’s still frowning at him, and decides right then that, yes, these six boys are crazy. 

“okay,” mark says. “i think i’m going to leave now.” 

he steps backwards, his heel centimeters away from the outside of the shrine, and is immediately stopped as donghyuck goes, “wait, hold on, hold on,” and reaches out for him. his hand grabs mark’s wrist -- 

and then goes through. 

again, donghyuck screams. 

“oh my god, that’s it!” jisung yells. “we have to get out of here, please, please.” 

“hey, not to be, like, rude,” mark says, “but are you guys, like, all ghosts of travelers or something? and you’re all suddenly reliving your experiences of visiting this shrine? because this is really, really weird.” 

jeno, with an awkward cough, says, “no, mark, actually…  _ you’re  _ a ghost.” 

for a long minute, mark doesn’t even process what jeno said. when he does, he can only laugh awkwardly. “what are you talking about?” he asks. his chest feels frozen. “i’m perfectly alive.” 

they all exchange glances yet again, and mark hates this so much, he hates how he feels, how confused he is, how all these strangers are acting like they know something that he doesn’t understand. 

“listen, mark,” jaemin says gently, taking a step forward. “i know this must be a lot to take in. but, well… a comet hit this town three years ago. everyone living here either died or moved away. and since you’re still here, well…” 

“comet?” mark asks. his head is spinning. this can’t be possible. “i - i think i heard that a comet is supposed to pass by in a few days, but -- there’s definitely never been a comet that hit this town. i mean, we’re still standing just like always. we’re still here.” 

“wait,” donghyuck says. “in a few days?” 

mark, who feels very, very uncomfortable at this point, can only give him a short nod. 

“guys,” donghyuck says in a whisper, as if mark can’t hear him. he backs towards his friends, and says, “i think something’s going on here.” 

“okay, okay, okay,” chenle says. “let’s figure this out, guys. there’s a ghost here --” 

“i’m not a ghost,” mark objects, feeling very sick. his stomach has turned into pure ice. 

“who says he’s still living in the past before the comet hit,” chenle finishes. 

“could it be the shrine?” jaemin wonders. 

“maybe he just relives the days leading up to his death,” renjun suggests. 

“either way,” jisung says, “can we get out of here?” 

“actually,” mark says, “i’m really uncomfortable right now, so could you at least stop talking about me like i’m not here? and also like i’m dead?” 

but despite everything, the words they say keep circling through his head.  _ dead? dead? and a comet?  _ it doesn’t make sense. it’s not possible. mark is about to throw up. 

“maybe,” jeno says, “he’s actually telling the truth.” 

“or maybe he’s a ghost that’s lying to us so he can kill us,” jisung shivers. 

mark, who clearly isn’t going to be listened to for a while, sighs to himself. he feels dizzy, like he might pass out at any moment, so he stumbles back through the cave, taking a rest in front of the shrine. he brushes his fingers against one of the little mini god statues and mutters, “if only i believed in you, i could ask for your help.” his bracelet is still sitting there at the shrine, just as he left it the day before. (there’s something thin on the altar that he doesn’t notice, withered up as it is -- something that may have once been flowers.) 

_ maybe this is all one crazy, fucked up dream,  _ he thinks.  _ you could argue i’ve had weirder -- i mean, i dream of people i’ve never met before. so this is just another weird, stupid dream. just a really vivid one. i’ll wake up soon, in my bed, and everything will be okay. in three… two…  _

“hey,” a voice says, crushing all his hopes. he looks up to see donghyuck staring down at him, brow furrowed. 

“what?” mark asks weakly. 

“that bracelet,” donghyuck says, pointing towards the bracelet on the altar. “is that yours?” 

“um,” mark glances at it, then back at donghyuck. “yeah? i left it at the shrine yesterday.” 

he doesn’t understand, at first, why donghyuck’s eyes are so wide, why he looks so shaken. but then donghyuck’s eyes travel downwards, down to his own wrist, and mark realizes that donghyuck also has a bracelet braided in the same way, with the same red cords. they look identical. and mark wonders, a fleeting, hopeful wonder, if maybe this shrine really does all that the myths say it can. 

donghyuck hesitates, stares. he studies mark, studies their identical bracelets. the others take notice, walking over to them, and they seem to make the same connection, eyes widening when they see the bracelet on the shrine. each of them, mark now notices, are wearing a red bracelet around their wrists. 

“guys,” donghyuck says again, and he turns to walk towards the far end of the shrine, his friends following him. once again, they whisper amongst themselves, and mark is left to sit alone, wondering how they could possibly have made the exact same bracelets, braided in the exact same way. 

donghyuck is saying something to them, something serious and heavy, and they all have looks in their eyes that mirror the tone of his voice. even if mark can’t hear what exactly they’re saying, he can tell that much. more than that, he can see how united the six of them are -- how close they all are to each other. from the way they stand close to each other, from the way they seem to trust each other, from the way they discuss with each other. 

his mind whispers memories of beaches he does not know and places he has not gone, and though it’s never struck him in the middle of the day, after a night without dreams, he suddenly feels again that need to cry, that overwhelming rush of emotions he so often feels after those dreams. 

he hears a voice then -- a voice that sounds like his mother. he hears his name called, distant but clear, resonating through the cave. none of the others react, and mark thinks with some vague fear that this is a sound that he alone can hear. it’s as if, despite being present in the same place, he and these six boys are living in different worlds. 

that’s a thought that sends another chill through mark’s bones. and then he hears his name again, his mother’s voice somewhere far away, and he stumbles to his feet, feeling numb from everything he’s felt and all the confusion he’s experienced. 

“i have to go,” he tells the six boys. 

“wait, we need to talk about this,” donghyuck starts, but mark shakes his head, walking past. 

“sorry,” he says, sending a glance behind them. “my mom’s gonna be looking for me, and i -- this is --”  _ too much,  _ he thinks, but he leaves the sentence unfinished. with another awkward nod in the boys’ direction, he leaves the cave. 

the moment his foot steps beyond the threshold of the cave, the world feels so utterly silent. there is no around him, and when he looks, no one inside of the cave.

this is the last thing he sees before darkness overcomes him. the sights, smells, sounds all disappear, replaced with endless black. 

and then he hears his mother’s voice again, and it’s right by his side. 

“mark, wake up,” she says. “you’re late for school!” 

and mark opens his eyes, and he’s at home. safe in his bed, in the world that he knows. as if it was all nothing but a dream. but as much as he ignores it, he knows the difference between dreams and reality. 

_ and that was no mere dream.  _

after school that day, he meets up with johnny again, at a nice cafe in town. unsurprisingly, he’s heard that mark ‘had a very strange dream this morning’, which is what mark’s mom seems to believe after he woke up in the morning shaky and confused. all mark knows for sure at this point is that he seriously needs to get the two of them far away from each other. 

“was your dream really that weird?” johnny asks. 

“i don’t --” mark huffs out a sigh. it’s hard to say he had a dream, harder to say he didn’t. “i don’t know.” 

“listen, mark,” johnny says, “i know you’re almost an adult and you’re a mature kid, so you can make responsible decisions for yourself, but you’re gonna worry your mom with this stuff.” 

“please stop talking like you  _ are  _ my mother,” mark says with a shudder, having heard almost the exact same line from his mother that morning. 

“so?” johnny asks. “what was with last night’s dream?”

mark frowns. he stares out the window at their town, full of life. a town like this, in less than a week, just -- gone? there’s no way. it’s not possible. 

with a shake of his head, he says, “it was nothing. just… another weird dream.” he clenches his fists tight, repeating those words in his head. “it was nothing but a dream.” 

johnny leans forward, concern clear in his eyes. “are you okay, dude?” 

mark looks to johnny, and he wants it to be true. he wants to believe that it really was just a normal dream. because if it wasn’t, then everyone he knows, including johnny -- they might all be in serious danger. 

“i need to -- go to the bathroom,” mark says, stumbling out of his chair. he feels nauseous. 

johnny calls after him, but he just heads into the bathroom of the cafe. he enters a stall, shuts the door, and leans against it, covering his face with his hands. 

“please be a dream,” mark whispers to himself. “please make it all just a dream.” 

johnny, probably feeling that he needs space, sends him a text that he’s leaving the cafe, but also that they should talk about this at some point -- or at least, mark should talk to somebody. even mark agrees to that extent, and he wishes he could feel comfortable talking to johnny, but he himself can’t even believe that what happened this morning was real. 

he can only think of one person who might somehow be able to explain it to him, so once he’s gathered himself, he leaves the bathroom and heads down the path he took yesterday to reach yuta’s house. yuta opens the door, takes one look at mark, and seems to understand. mark’s not sure what it is exactly that he understands, but yuta calls out to his grandmother that he’ll be out for a little while, and steps outside to join mark. 

“so, what brings you here?” yuta asks, herding mark down the path to his front door and over to a nice convenient bench outside. 

“i, uh.” mark doesn’t have any idea what to say. 

“something happened, right?” yuta guesses. mark nods numbly. “tell me. whatever it is, i’ll listen.” 

but at a loss for what to say, mark doesn’t tell him. instead, he says, “yuta, what do you know about the comet?” 

“the comet?” yuta asks, taken aback. 

“it’s supposed to pass by next week, right?” mark asks. “the day your family is hosting a festival.” 

“right,” yuta nods. “but i can’t really say i know that much about it, unfortunately. it’s just a comet that will pass by. should be quite a sight, though?” he seems to read something in mark’s expression, because his brow furrows, and he says, “is there something wrong with the comet?” 

“is, uh.” mark swallows. “is there any chance that comet would hit us?” 

now yuta seems properly concerned, his expression full of confusion. “where did this come from, mark? if the comet was going to hit us, i think we’d have heard about that.” 

“right,” mark agrees slowly, nodding his head. “right. there’s no way the comet would hit, right?” 

yuta studies mark. he stands to his feet, kneels before mark, eyebrows raised and intent. “what did you see, mark?” he asks. 

mark can’t seem to meet yuta’s gaze. 

“it’s not often,” yuta says, “but i know there are people who give something to that shrine, and really do receive something in return, even in the smallest way. you made a wish, right, mark? what happened? what have you seen?” 

“i don’t know,” mark says slowly. he can hardly breathe. “i don’t understand it. i’m not sure it was even real, i --” 

“mark,” yuta repeats. he gives mark a soft smile. 

“i was in the shrine. i saw these people,” mark says. “so many of them, coming in and out. none of them could see me. except for six of them -- these six guys, who told me…” he hesitates; his hands shake. “they told me that three years ago, a comet hit this town.” 

yuta’s eyes go wide. he stands, taking a step back. 

“i know,” mark says. “it’s impossible. it must have just been another weird dream. i’m just -- i’m just confused because it felt real like my other dreams, or because it happened right after my wish, or because it felt like --”  _ like they were important,  _ “like more than a dream… but that’s all it was. just a dream.” 

but yuta just says, “come with me.” 

he leads the way back into his house, and mark follows, even confused as he is. they walk into the living room of yuta’s house, where an old woman is sitting on the couch, a cup of tea on the table before her, staring into the distance. 

“granny,” yuta says in japanese, “we need to talk to you about something.” 

his grandmother turns to them with a smile. “oh, yuta’s friend?” she asks, looking to mark. “it’s nice to meet you.” 

“oh, uh, you too,” mark says, also in japanese. 

“granny,” yuta repeats. “you know the comet that’s going to pass by next week? is there anything important about it that you remember -- anything that maybe your parents told you?” 

“ah, the comet,” his grandmother says. “that will be a very important day. we will celebrate the festival that day: the festival to guide souls.” 

“guide souls?” mark echoes. 

“indeed. it is not just a simple festival. we will light candles and lanterns, and wish upon them. we will wish to find our way; we will wish that those we’ve lost can find their way.” 

“but what about the comet?” yuta asks. 

“if only i could tell you, yu-chan,” his grandmother says, and mark tries not to react to the nickname. “my own mother would tell me that we passed on stories about the festival and the comet. the day it comes has been an important day for years. perhaps just because of the first comet that hit long ago, but we can no longer say for sure. we lost all information on that in the fire over one hundred years ago.” 

“there was a fire?” mark asks. 

yuta nods. “a lot of important information about our own traditions was lost in that fire,” yuta says. “we’ve tried to keep what we can alive through word of mouth and traditions, but there’s too many things that are gone for good.” 

“but why do you ask about the comet?” his grandmother asks. 

yuta glances at mark. “we think that maybe something is going to happen that day. something that will put the town in danger. 

his grandmother hums. “it’s possible,” she admits. “if only we had a way to find out now.” 

“you really think it could be true?” mark asks. he’s taken aback by how quickly she accepted that, when he himself can’t truly believe it. 

“there has always been a great importance put on that day,” she says. “we celebrate it, but we do not entirely know why. it may be for reasons in the past, or reasons relating to the first comet. but if it is not, then it would be for something that will happen in the future, no?” 

mark sighs, running a hand through his hair. “maybe,” he murmurs. 

“perhaps we have a way to know,” his grandmother says, slowly lifting to her feet. she nods to the boys, and they follow her as she puts on her shoes and goes outside. 

“are we going to the shrine?” yuta asks. 

“we must find the answers for ourselves,” his grandmother says. “but it is possible that he will grant us a sign, or a step in the right direction. it is always better to ask than to fear in silence.” 

with those wise words, she leads them down the long path to goshintai. mark’s a little bit worried about her making such a long trek, but yuta is by her side any time she so much as looks like she may stumble, and she seems like a capable woman. eventually, they arrive at the cave, and for a moment mark wonders if someone is there, if once again he will come across those six boys. 

they enter into the cave without any disruptions, and mark can’t tell if he’s disappointed or relieved. 

yuta’s grandmother steps towards the shrine, kneeling to pray, but before doing anything else, she catches sight of the bracelet lain on the shrine and smiles. “red thread,” she says. “the thread that binds souls.” 

“what?” mark asks, a little too loud. 

“it’s often said that red thread binds souls,” she says. “the same goes for this braided cord. the red cords and the way they are braided symbolizes the binding of souls. it is a way of keeping souls together, even across the threshold of life.” 

“i -- didn’t know that.” 

“is this yours?” she asks him. 

“yeah, uh, i came here yesterday,” mark says. “i had nothing else to leave so…” 

“you left the best thing you can. especially if you braided it yourself, this will contain your soul,” she says. “you made a wish, then?” 

“um, yeah. something like that.” 

there is something in her eyes, some knowledge mark wishes he could share in. “perhaps we have already been given our sign,” she says. 

all the same, she prays at the shrine, and mark and yuta leave her in peace as she does so. 

“hey,” yuta says. “i’m sure you’ve already considered this, but you really should think about if those guys you saw might be --” 

“yeah,” mark says quietly. “i know.” 

it’s hard to say, hard to imagine, that it might really be true. that after all these years of confusion and of wondering, the answer could come as simply this. but it’s harder even to believe that this could be the truth -- that they could appear in his life only to be harbingers of doom. 

yuta, perhaps understanding that there’s quite a bit going on in mark’s mind, only says, “okay. it’s up to you.” 

a while later, his grandmother exits the shrine. they return to yuta’s home, and she asks mark if he’d like to stay for dinner. he says no, and she relents, but tells him to come back again tomorrow, and they’ll see if they’ve learned anything new. 

that evening, despite his mother’s concerns, mark barely eats dinner. he even neglects his homework, instead spending the night on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, thinking. he rewinds his meetings with those six boys over and over again in his mind, and all he can think is: 

_ what if?  _

_\-----_

when donghyuck sees that bracelet, he knows. 

he knows that he really had been called to this place for a reason, and that there really is something important about this strange boy. he wants to reach out to him, to hold him there and make him talk to them; he wants to let him go, to accept their lives as they are and move on; he wants to have the truth; he doesn’t want the truth. 

he doesn’t know, really, what he wants. 

but he sees that bracelet, and something clicks. stupid as it is, maybe everything in life really does happen for a reason. 

“listen,” he whispers to the others, “i know it might be crazy, but… i think there’s more to this place. it feels like it’s calling to me, like it’s telling me there’s something more here, something we need to find. and if that guy is telling the truth, and he really exists in a time where the comet hasn’t hit yet, then.. maybe we could even save him. all of them.” 

“donghyuck,” renjun says, hesitant, unsure. 

“come on, guys,” he says. “there has to be a reason. a reason for,” he pauses, not ready to put to words all the things they’ve experienced. “for everything,” he says instead. “and for these bracelets.” 

“it’s worth a shot,” jeno says. “there’s something strange about this place, for sure. i can feel it too. right?” 

and when the others all nod, their decision seems made. 

unfortunately, right after that, mark, who must be incredibly overwhelmed (they did, in hindsight, throw some huge curveballs at the dude), practically runs out of the cave, like he can’t stand to be there any longer. and the moment he’s no longer in the cave, he disappears, like he was never there at all. the six of them all make eye contact, and none of them seem able to say anything about it. they linger for minutes in this space, trying to process what they’ve seen, trying to feel sane. but there is nothing there, no answer awaits in the empty space, and so they finally pick themselves up and leave, meeting up with the others as if nothing had happened. 

“you guys were in there for a while,” kun says. he’s directed the rest of their field trip members to go ahead and look around on their own now, and now it’s just him, sicheng, two of their friends, and donghyuck and the others. “did something happen?” 

they all seem hesitant to speak, glancing around at each other and at kun. jeno is the first to speak, with a shake of his head and a, “no, nothing happened. we were just… intrigued.” 

kun smiles. “well, it’s nice to have you guys getting interested in history, especially as non-history majors,” he says. 

“speaking of getting interested in history,” donghyuck says, “if we were maybe interested in learning about some of the people who used to live here, is there somewhere we could find that?” 

“the records are basically entirely destroyed, i’m afraid,” kun says. “the library was almost entirely destroyed in the comet, and what little survived has surely been given away by now.” 

“if you’re really interested,” sicheng speaks up, “you could probably find some information down in tokyo.” 

“in the city?” jaemin asks. 

“there are some records kept there about this town. most of the older kids who lived in this town went to college in tokyo, so you could try checking out a library?” sicheng says. 

“do you remember where the bus station is?” kun asks. 

“yeah, we remember,” renjun says. “thanks so much, kun, sicheng.” 

“anytime,” kun says. sicheng nods his agreement. 

the six of them then make their way to the bus station right outside town. it’s a fifteen minute wait until the next bus comes, so they sit and wait -- chenle, jisung, jaemin, and renjun squeezing onto the bench, jeno and donghyuck standing at their sides. they’re quiet, in a way that is unnatural for the six of them. 

“what do we do,” chenle says softly, “if he’s actually real?” 

it’s hard for any of them to find an answer. 

“i mean,” renjun sighs, “what do we even do if he’s not? then we’re mass-hallucinating a ghost.” 

again, no answer.

“well,” jeno says, “right now, we should find out what we can. after that… we’ll see, i guess.” 

and they sit and wait in silence. 

after the bus drops them off in tokyo, they make their way through the large city to the library (but they stop several times as they go, distracted by stores and ice cream and the incredible sights of the city that is tokyo). the library is large and beautiful, long glass windows and brown wooden tables with a fancy border design in gold. they set their bags down around one desk, and then renjun and donghyuck walk over to the librarian. 

“hi, do you know --” donghyuck starts in korean, and the librarian raises an eyebrow at him, while renjun elbows him in the side. he then clears his throat and starts trying to speak japanese. after some stuttering and confusion, he manages to ask the librarian if she knows about the town. at least, donghyuck thinks that’s what he asked. unfortunately, he and renjun are equally unsure about his success. 

the librarian seems to understand, though, because she stands up and leads them to a certain bookshelf in the back. she gestures to a row of it, and to their delight, there are various books with titles relating to the town or the comet.

“thank you,” they chorus in japanese, and she nods at them and leaves them to their searching. the other four, having noticed them being led away by the librarian, join up with them, and they begin looking through the books there. 

it doesn’t take long for chenle to, voicing his triumph and then immediately being hushed, find a book of town records (written, by some strange miracle, in korean -- though there seem to be multiple copies of it in various languages). they take it back to the table they had placed their things at. chenle flips open the book, and then looks at the others. 

“uh,” he says. “these are usually ordered by last name, right?” 

“shit,” donghyuck says. 

“he didn’t happen to say it, did he?” jaemin asks, though his expression shows he doubts it. 

“definitely not,” donghyuck says. “do we seriously have to flip through this book until we find a ‘mark’?” 

“to be fair, it’s not a common japanese name,” jeno says. “and he spoke korean. i guess we should keep our eyes peeled for any last names that don’t look japanese.” 

with a sigh, chenle starts flipping through the book, and the others, squished together at his shoulders, run their eyes down the list of names for any ‘mark’s. 

finally, after far too long flipping through, jisung spots the name. “there!” he says, pointing at a ‘mark lee’ at the bottom of the page. “that must be him, right?” 

chenle skims over the details given in the book. “mark lee, male, august second -- toronto?” he looks up at the others. “he was born in canada?” 

“a canada-born korean living in japan?” jaemin says. “what a weirdo.” 

“but this means,” jisung says, sounding a little bit scared, “that we really did see a ghost today. right?” 

they all exchange glances. 

“it has a death date, too,” chenle says, voice small. “october fourth, twenty seventeen.” 

“just a few days from now,” renjun says, just as quietly. “the day the comet hit.” 

in the wake of this truth, they again find it hard to speak. eventually, donghyuck reaches over and closes the book. he takes it back to the place they found it, and in their hazy silence, they leave the library. 

they text kun and sicheng that they’re heading back to the hotel early, and take a bus there. no one speaks the entire drive. once they arrive, they all make their way into jaemin, chenle, and jisung’s shared room. they settle down, placing their things and finding somewhere to sit, and then it’s just silence. no one is ready to speak first. 

in the silence, donghyuck feels it again. that someone should be there, someone should be filling this space. he feels that someone would lead them gently, even through the dark and scary moments; someone would break that silence and help them find their way. 

but it’s different now. it’s so, so very different, because there’s a chance he knows who that someone is. there’s a chance, as crazy as it all is, that he’s now met that someone. 

and there’s a chance that someone is already dead. 

“we have to find out who he is,” jeno says quietly. 

“we just did,” jaemin says. 

“who he is to  _ us,”  _ jeno amends. “the reason that we could see him when no one else could.” 

donghyuck runs his hand against his red bracelet. 

“guys,” chenle says. his eyes, his voice, they speak of a soft uncertainty, and he glances around at the others. “i - i know we never talk about it, but shouldn’t we,” he hesitates. “shouldn’t we admit that he’s probably… he’s the one who…” and chenle goes silent, because he doesn’t seem to be able to find the words. even when he wants to say it, he doesn’t know how to. 

“he’s tied to us,” donghyuck murmurs. he looks up from his bracelet, eyes serious. “and we’re tied to him.” 

“then we’re really… incomplete?” renjun asks. 

“and he’s the missing piece,” donghyuck says. 

“but he’s --” jisung starts. “he’s already…” 

“what if that’s why we’re here?” donghyuck asks. “what if, somehow, everything worked so that we would find our way here, and have a chance to save him?” 

“then, what should we do now?” chenle asks. “how do we do that?” 

donghyuck frowns. he’s not sure. he’s barely fully wrapped his head around what’s happening. 

“for now,” jeno says, “we should try to find him again. if we go to the shrine tomorrow morning, maybe he’ll be there.” 

“it’s the best idea we have,” renjun says. he stands up with a small sigh. “we’ll figure this out, guys.” 

they share nods, words of affirmation, and they are weak, but they are the best they can offer. with that, they separate back into their own rooms. donghyuck and jeno make their way into theirs, and donghyuck flops onto his bed with a heavy sigh. jeno sits beside him. 

“are you okay?” he asks. “i know this,” he fishes for words, “thing,” he says, “has been hard on you. it always has.” 

donghyuck sighs again. “i don’t know,” he admits. “part of me’s terrified, because i don’t know what’s going on and it’s like the world is just pushing us onto some path that i don’t understand, and someone who might mean the world to us might also be… in danger. and some other part of me is relieved, because i’m finding an answer to the question that’s plagued us for years. i never wanted us to be ‘incomplete’, but… i also wanted that empty space to be gone. if it’s him -- if he’s the one who’s supposed to be here with us, then… we absolutely have to save him, jeno. we have to.” 

jeno gives him a small smile. “i know,” he says. “we will. we’ll figure this out.” 

“okay,” donghyuck says. he wants to believe jeno -- he really does. 

the day passes away quietly, heavily. 

the first thing they do when they arrive in town the next day is head to the shrine. they walk there in tense silence. usually, donghyuck would try to crack a joke, to lighten the mood. it’s always been something he’s liked to do. 

since they’ve first come here, it’s been too hard. too hard to pull himself out of his own mind. too hard to stop just thinking, thinking, thinking. like what if, and what do we do, and how do we do it? it beats on, the questions like a drum beat rhythm in his head, and he just hopes they’re more than just a drum beat for the dead. 

no one is there in the cave. it is empty, silent, and that is almost the most terrifying result. the possibility that, perhaps, they had only one chance, and they’ve lost it now, for good. 

“let’s -- wait,” jeno says softly. “just… just in case.” 

minutes pass, the longest minutes of their life. as they do, something in donghyuck’s mind tells him,  _ he won’t come.  _ but he is desperate, desperate enough to ignore it and continue to wait, even though he knows that inner voice of his must speak the truth. it always has before. 

after thirty minutes, renjun just stands up. he looks around at the others, eyes sad, and shakes his head. 

“let’s go,” jaemin says softly, standing with him, and slowly, the six of them leave. 

but they only get a few steps out of the cave before they realize that someone else has come here too. donghyuck has his eyes downcast, heart heavy, but he hears the footsteps, and looks up. “oh,” he says. 

“oh,” echoes a young man. his hair is jet black (dyed, donghyuck suspects). he tries to push his bangs out of his face, but they fall back over his eyes, as he gives them an awkward, friendly smile. “hi. you’re some of those college kids?” 

“um, yeah,” jaemin answers, a little taken aback. none of them had expected to see any strangers in a place like this (other than, well, you know -- if he even counts). 

“who are you?” chenle asks. “are you… joining the field trip?” 

“no, no,” the man laughs. “i’m not in college -- never went, actually. my name is yuta, nakamoto yuta. i, uh, used to live here.” 

donghyuck’s eyes go wide. his friends’ share the same reactions, and yuta gives them a small, knowing smile. 

“yeah,” he says with a sigh, and his eyes are sad. “i’m one of the few.” 

he doesn’t need to elaborate. 

“i’m sorry,” jeno says gently. 

“yeah,” yuta says. “um, but i appreciate all you guys coming here. not a lot of people really care about… well, any of it, anymore. i came because i was called here, actually, and even if i don’t know enough, i want to be able to share whatever i know about the history of this town.” 

“you said your last name is nakamoto?” renjun asks. 

“that’s right,” yuta says. “three years ago, my family took care of the town’s shrine.” 

“did she -- uh,” chenle starts, and then seems to realize his mistake, as jisung elbows him in the side. 

“it’s okay,” yuta says with a smile. “she’s fine, actually. other than, i mean, old age and arthritis. we both survived together. we both…” another sigh. “watched that comet destroy our town.” he takes a few steps, lovingly approaching the shrine. he presses a hand against its stone walls. “we were here,” he says, turning to the others. “the day it happened. we were supposed to be down in the festival, but my sisters were doing the dances, so everyone was distracted. there was something i wanted to look into, i think. i don’t remember what anymore. but i took her here and then… not long after we arrived, it happened.” 

they’re all quiet. it’s hard to say anything, in the face of his vast sorrow. he bites his lip, runs a hand through his hair, and then musters up a weak smile for them. 

“so,” he says, “what brings you kids up here? i know it’s a bit of a walk.” 

“we were, uh,” jeno starts, but he glances around at the others, eyes panicked. 

“playing!” chenle says. “yup, playing. lots of space. y’know. grass.” 

jisung elbows him again. he elbows back. 

yuta laughs, amused. “playing all the way up here? i think there’s a whole city just forty minutes by bus if you want space.” 

“we weren’t playing,” renjun says, with a pointed look at chenle. “we’re not here to play, right?” 

“right. not playing,” chenle nods sagely. 

“we thought, uh, maybe we could find something here. that we missed,” jaemin offers. 

yuta, though eyeing them with amusement and maybe not entirely believing them, says, “you won’t find anything here, i’m afraid,” as his eyes are drawn to the inside of the cave. “nothing but memories and wishes.” 

“wishes?” donghyuck asks. 

“well, i’ll give the whole talk to your other friends -- that’s what they called me here for. but, yeah, people who came here would wish for something. it’s about ‘finding paths’. the path to the right job, to the right place, or even to the right people. they’d wish, pray, and maybe leave a part of themselves.” 

they give him confused looks, and he beckons them forward into the shrine. he steps towards the altar, kneeling at it. his eyes pass over the myriad of small trinkets and belongings that have been placed at the shrine. “they’ve gotten all dusty,” he says softly, fondly. then he looks back at the six of them. “these,” he says. “all these little things, they were left here by different people. we believed that if you left a part of yourself here, you’d be led to the things you want to find.” 

“do you still… believe that?” jaemin asks, hesitant. 

yuta is quiet. his eyes are distant, lost in some time that donghyuck and the others cannot understand. “i don’t know,” he says, nearly a whisper. “i try to,” he says. “i try to hold on to the things we had. but sometimes you think -- how did it all happen? how was that the right path, when it ended like that? but then you think maybe… maybe we just didn’t have the right wishes. maybe something was lost along the way.” he shakes his head. “i don’t know. i really don’t know.” 

they’re quiet. 

“you said different people left the things here?” donghyuck asks, changing the topic. yuta nods. “so, even that bracelet?” 

yuta looks at the bracelet. again, his eyes are so sad. donghyuck regrets asking, somehow. 

“yeah,” he touches it gently, then retracts his hand quickly. “this is the last thing that was left here. my friend -- well. maybe he wasn’t quite my friend. i barely got to know him, before the comet. but the person who left this, i knew him. i was here when he did.” 

donghyuck’s eyes widen. “you knew him?” 

“yeah,” yuta says. there’s that distant look in his eyes again. “mark lee. we had a mutual friend. he was having trouble with -- something. i can’t seem to recall. dreams, i think? my friend seemed to think visiting the shrine could do him some good, so i brought them here. he left this bracelet. i guess it was important to him.” 

“what did he wish for?” renjun asks, his breath lost. 

yuta frowns, brow furrowed. after some thought, he says, “sorry, i don’t remember. my memories of that week are… blurry, these days. whatever it was, it seemed like he never got his answer. we talked once, afterwards, and i talked with our mutual friend. i don’t think anything ever happened.” he glances back at them, and looks concerned. “is something wrong?” 

they’re all quiet, breathless. donghyuck’s chest is constricting, near murderous, his heart beat thudding loudly in his chest. 

“is there any chance,” donghyuck says, throat tight, “that his wish might have… come true, three years late?” 

yuta’s brow furrows. “what?” he asks. he stands, turning towards him. “what do you mean?” 

“donghyuck?” jeno whispers, and donghyuck bites his lip. 

“no,” he says, “it’s nothing. sorry.” 

yuta frowns at him, but eventually gives in. “okay,” he says. “well, there’s something i came here to do, actually,” he says, and then he reaches into the bag he’d brought with him, pulling out a pencil and a notepad, from which he rips out a piece of paper. 

“what is that for?” jisung asks. 

“i thought i’d leave a message,” yuta says, as he kneels back down. “my grandmother used to tell me… time means nothing to a god. it means nothing to the land. they will take your wishes, your messages, however long, however far forward or backward, as necessary. so,” he gives them a small smile. “maybe even this will reach.” 

“can we -- can we leave something too?” renjun asks. “i know it might not, um, mean much, from us, but…” 

“no, that would be nice,” yuta says. he rips out a second piece of paper and fishes through his bag to retrieve another pen (it’s gudetama-style), and hands it to renjun. immediately, renjun puts the paper down on the ground. he glances up, to make sure yuta is busy with his own message, and then scribbles down: 

_ we need to talk. meet here oct 3, 8 AM  _

then he flips it over, and begins writing some bs message about how he appreciates the mythology of the town and hopes that their wishes have come true and how he’s sorry about what happened and, really, donghyuck is impressed by the speed with which he comes up with this message. he’s reminded, watching this happen, that renjun is very good at writing essays. 

once he’s done, he places his message on the altar, next to where yuta has placed his own. yuta glances down at it and says, “won’t you sign it?” 

“oh,” renjun says. he glances at the others, and donghyuck reaches over and grabs the pencil. he signs it ‘dream’, and then, below that, all of their names. 

with that done, yuta leads the way back out of the cave. “i’m going to meet up with the rest of your friends now,” he says. “wanna come with?” 

they agree, and they begin the walk down from the shrine. 

“by the way,” chenle says, “how did you learn korean?” 

“my grandmother spoke it,” he says. “she spent a couple years in korea when she was younger. she also spent time in china, and spain, and england. she taught me all the languages she knew, so i’m actually pretty multilingual,” he says, giving them a grin that totally says he’s bragging. “she liked to go around the world and study different cultures.” 

they talk more about that, and other minor conversations. they try to avoid anything that’ll get him talking about the past too much, as to not remind him of his sadness, and he talks to them some about school and their classes. the time spent to reach the others goes by fast, and soon they’re standing with kun, sicheng, and most of the other people on the field trip. 

“you guys already met him, huh?” kun says. “i asked him to come here and talk to us about the history of his town.” 

“there’s not much i can say that you don’t already know, though,” yuta admits. 

“we appreciate it though,” sicheng tells him. “i’m sure it’s not easy to come back.” 

“it’s not,” yuta agrees. “but i’m glad, actually. i haven’t been back in years. my grandmother would come back, she’d pray and she’d take care of what she could, help out how she could. but she’s a bit too weak now, and i… i feel like i abandoned this place. because i was too scared of the memories.” he looks back towards sicheng. “so, thanks. you guys gave me a good reason to come back.” 

he smiles at sicheng, and sicheng smiles back, and at his side, donghyuck hears renjun whisper, “shit, he’s stealing sicheng.” 

donghyuck leans over and whispers, “you never had him in the first place.” 

renjun grabs him and starts to strangle him, and when yuta looks over in concern, kun assures him that this is normal behavior. 

after that, they all settle down, and yuta talks to them about the town. he tells them about their traditions, their beliefs, some things that donghyuck had heard before, and others things he hadn’t. for all that history has bored him to death, this -- this has started to feel like more than history, for him. he listens, for once, and he really means to hear it all the way through. 

but there’s a gust of wind, something that goes past him, and for a moment, it’s almost as if he could see it. everything that was once here. 

they’re sitting on a street in the middle of town, because there’s never really anywhere good to sit considering, well, the state of the town. there are the ruins of buildings to their left and right, and on the nearest one, donghyuck sees the faded signs of what he thinks might have been an ice cream shop before. to its side, he imagines it would be a coffee shop. on the other side, a bookstore. 

_ he would be a student,  _ donghyuck thinks.  _ he would stop with a friend at that ice cream shop. he’d leave, walk into the bookstore, try to find a book for class. probably, he’d buy a comic, too. he’s that kind of person.  _

and when he thinks this, it resounds so deeply in him, the strange confidence with which he is so sure he knows this person. 

he doesn’t hear a word yuta says after that. he just keeps watching, watching the mark of his mind walk through this town. 

_ these simple things he did,  _ donghyuck thinks,  _ we should have been doing them together.  _

_\-----_

the dream mark has that night is more vivid than any other dream he’s had before. he hears himself sing a song -- he hears it so clearly, from the background instruments to his own voice, and he knows it is a song he’s never heard before, but it sounds so familiar. he hears people sing the song with him, and there is a choking in his chest as he sings, and he is not sure if it is from his real self or his dream self. he can feel himself form the words, and he is singing them with all his might, like a desperate prayer to hold onto something, to someone. the words he sings are the one thing he doesn’t know, the one thing that doesn’t come to him clearly. 

he feels the weight, then, of hands in his own, and it is so close, so warm, so gentle, that tears start sliding down his face. and he turns to look at the people holding his hands, first to his left, then to his right, and he can’t make out their faces, but when he turns to the right, he swears he almost does. it’s mere seconds away, the moment in which he will see this person’s face, and his heart is beating hard, fast, anticipatory, and then -- 

then it’s gone. he’s awake, alarm blaring at his side, tears streaming down his face. he’s in his room, in a place that he knows well, and never has he felt as distant from his own home as he does in this moment. like he wasn’t here mere seconds ago, like he’d never really been here -- as if he had been so many different places instead. it feels, for a moment, as if he has returned home for the first time in months, like he’s come back from a long, long vacation, and he can barely recognize his own home. even though he had never even left. 

there’s a knocking at his door. 

“mark, honey, are you up?” his mom asks from outside his room. “you’re going to be late for school again!” 

mark looks at his phone, and realizes with a start that this is not in fact his first alarm, but the last of five, which he has never before in his life actually used. he throws himself quickly out of his bed, frantically wipes away at his tears, and calls back to his mom that he’s getting ready. he pauses, just for a moment, and the force of everything he dreamt of hits him like a tidal wave, and his knees buckle. he has to catch himself on his bedside table, accidentally knocking his phone down onto the ground, and he takes two deep breaths. 

“one thing at a time, mark,” he tells himself. and he continues to get ready for school. 

he gets some texts from johnny during school. he asks mark if he wants to meet up when mark’s done with school, if he’s doing okay, and mark texts him back that sorry, no, he has something he needs to do, some school work, but they’ll talk later, and yes, he’s just fine. and then, immediately after school ends, he’s running down the paths that will lead him to the shrine, trying to get there as soon as possible. 

mark has always been an early-riser -- raised on that ‘early to bed, early to rise’ kind of idea by his mother, though that early to bed part has faded out of his life -- so he had planned, originally, to try and make a quick visit to the shrine in the morning, because that was when he met those boys the first time. with this morning ending up as it did, he has to visit now, and he wonders if there’s even any chance they’re still there. if time will line up for them, bring them together. he’s still not even sure if they’re real, and even if they are, if he can find them like this. but still, he wants to hope. 

but when he arrives, the cave is empty. he sighs, but somehow he almost expected it. it would be too much, too convenient, for them to be here. 

he drops his backpack down on the ground of the cave, takes a moment to sit on the ground and rest, because it really is a long walk to the shrine. when he does, though, he notices something new on the altar -- two things, in fact, both pieces of paper. 

the first one is written in japanese. it’s a message, mark realizes with a shaky start, to the town. 

a message from a survivor. 

they write that they’re sorry, sorry they made it out and they couldn’t save anyone else. they wish for their sisters to be okay, to be happy, wherever it is they may be. they write that their belief in their god is fading, has been ever since the comet, but they hope so dearly that he’s there, that he hears, and that he has guided the lost souls of this town to the proper path, now that it’s all gone. they write that they miss their home, they miss their friends, their family. they write: 

_ please forgive me. please be okay.  _

_ i wish you were still here.  _

and somehow, as he reads, as the tears well up in his eyes and his heart beats so heavy, so painfully in his chest, mark has a feeling he knows who wrote this. 

signed at the bottom, confirming his thought, is the name  _ nakamoto yuta.  _

“so he survived,” mark murmurs, wiping tears out of his eyes. “and it’s… real.” 

there is no way to deny, at this point in time, that a comet is going to hit his town. everyone he loves, everyone important to him, they are all going to die to some unstoppable force. mark’s hands are shaking, and he nearly crumples the paper, as he places it back on the altar. he clasps his hands together, squeezes tight, tries to steady himself. there’s a part of him that still wants to turn tail, that wants to escape this reality and call it a lie. 

but he has been shown all these things; he has been given this truth. there has to be a reason for that. a greater power, be it a god or magic or who knows what -- something gave him this knowledge. and if he has it then, goddamnit, he has to do something with it. he has to do something. 

he can’t lose it all. 

it’s somewhere in the midst of him calming his shaking breaths that he remembers the second piece of paper, and finally picks it up. it’s written, for some reason, in korean. it seems to be from someone who isn’t from the town, and again, he thinks he knows who wrote it. at the bottom, it’s signed ‘dream’ for some reason, but below that, he sees the names of the six boys. 

“so they were here,” he says to himself. “but is this supposed to be a message?”

in case there’s more information, he flips it over -- and, indeed, finds another message there, saying they need to talk, tomorrow at eight. 

“tomorrow at eight,” he repeats aloud to himself, a promise for the silence of the cave. then he folds up the message and shoves it into his pocket. 

he gives one glance at the letter yuta wrote. he almost picks it up too, but it’s not for him -- not just for him. 

“i promise,” he whispers, “i’ll make sure you never have to write that again.” 

he leaves the cave in a determined silence. 

mark meets up with johnny that evening, because he left him pretty concerned yesterday, and he figures it wouldn’t be right not to at least talk to him after that. 

they sit in their usual spot in front of the lake. the air gets cooler these days, and in the later hours of the day it’s only worse. as the canadian boy he is, mark can sit out here in shorts and be fine, but johnny glares at him from within the hood of his sweater. 

“too busy with school work to meet up with me when it’s less cold, huh?” he says. 

“sorry,” mark mutters. he’s still distracted, still a little confused. usually, all he needs to worry about is school and maybe his family or his friends, but all he can think about now is -- 

how does he save an entire town? 

johnny’s eyes soften and, more serious now, he asks, “what’s going on, mark?”

mark lifts his knees to his chest, resting his arms upon them, and sighs. he doesn’t want to lie to johnny, but he’s not sure he’s ready to tell him the truth, either.  _ in just a few days, both of us will be dead and so will almost everyone we love if we don’t do something?  _ it’s harder to say, now that he knows it’s the truth. 

“it has to do with your dreams, right?” johnny presses gently. 

mark nods. 

“but… you’ve always been willing to talk to me about these things before,” johnny says. “what’s changed?” 

“what’s changed,” mark says slowly, looking towards johnny with wide, shaking eyes, “is i think i’ve  _ met  _ them.” 

“them?” johnny echoes, confused at first. and then his eyes go wide. “the ones -- from your dreams?” 

again, mark nods. “i’m not sure, but…” then he shakes his head. it’s hard to deny, at this point, how deeply in his chest he has felt it. “no, i’m positive. it was them.” 

“damn,” johnny says. he runs a hand through his hair, bewildered. “i guess, uh, the whole shrine thing worked?”

“it more than worked,” mark says. “because --” and his breath catches in his throat, and he falters, and he’s not ready, not yet. 

but johnny just stands and gives him a warm grin. “come on,” he says. “it’s cold out here, right? let’s go get something warm to eat.” he holds his hand out to mark, and mark takes it, relies on him as he pulls mark up. “you can tell me when you’re ready,” johnny says softly. 

“thanks,” mark mumbles. and without a word more on the subject, johnny pulls mark through their town to get something to eat. and mark, he is so, so grateful. his eyes fill with tears, and he blinks them away. if johnny notices, he doesn’t say a thing. 

it’s only after they’ve eaten, as they walk side by side in the direction of mark’s house under dark skies, the sun having long set, that mark brings himself to say something. it comes from the comfort in his chest, the warmth from more than the warm food they had. he doesn’t want to burden johnny with this, but he can’t not tell him -- because johnny’s his best friend. his precious best friend, who he absolutely cannot allow to be hurt. 

he stops walking. 

“the comet’s going to hit us.” 

johnny stops walking too. 

“in just a few days, the comet will hit this town. that’s what they told me. the people from my dream. the shrine didn’t just lead me to them -- it led me through time. because they exist in the future. and we… we don’t.” 

johnny turns towards mark, and mark can’t bring himself to meet his eyes. 

“i’m sorry, johnny,” mark whispers, and his mind rings of a different message. he can hear yuta’s voice in his head, saying _ i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i wish you were still here.  _

and then arms wrap around him, warm and comforting, and mark finds himself shaking in his best friend’s arms, trying so hard to hold himself together. 

“you’re sure?” johnny asks quietly, and mark thinks,  _ damn, he’s shaking too.  _

“i’m sure,” mark says. “i didn’t want to believe it at first, but i saw… saw the proof.”  __

johnny pulls away then, and mark sees the silent question, so this time he leads johnny through their town, their town that they both are desperately wishing to not disappear, until they make their way to the shrine. 

“here,” mark says, pointing at yuta’s message on the altar. johnny glances at the altar, then at mark. 

“uh,” he says. “there’s nothing there.” 

mark’s brow furrows. “you don’t see it?” he asks. johnny shakes his head. mark picks the paper up, examining it just to make sure it really is still there. he knows it must be real, though, from the feeling of paper in his hands, from the words on the page. “can you not see it because it comes from the future?” he wonders. “then why can i see it?” 

“because you’re tied to the shrine.” 

mark lets out an undignified yelp, and he and johnny turn towards the entrance of the shrine. yuta’s there, pointing his phone flashlight at them (because it really is getting quite dark, and this shrine doesn’t exactly come with lighting). 

“yuta,” johnny says, surprised. “what are you doing here?” 

“you two idiots freaked my little sister out coming here when it’s almost night time,” yuta says, approaching them. “she told me there were ghosts near the shrine.” 

“sorry,” mark mumbles. yuta just grins. 

“so,” yuta says, “what is this thing you have that neither johnny nor i can see?” 

and mark, he can’t make eye contact with yuta. 

“actually,” he says, “it’s probably for the better.” 

“what is?” johnny asks. 

“that you can’t see it,” mark says, and he places it back on the altar. “it’s not something… you should have to read.” 

“so it’s about the comet?” yuta guesses. mark nods. 

“you know about the comet?” johnny asks. 

“mark came to ask me about it yesterday,” yuta says. 

“you told him before me?” johnny asks mark, feigning insult. 

“i barely even believed it when i told him,” mark says. “i thought he might know something about it, though. i mean, the comet comes on the day of the festival.” then he glances at yuta. “but, uh -- what did you mean about that earlier? that i’m… ‘tied to the shrine?” 

“your bracelet,” yuta says. “it’s tied you to the shrine. i’m guessing because the shrine is still in the midst of granting your wish. my grandmother told me once that this shrine and god don’t follow the laws of time. so right now, while you’re in the shrine, you’re kind of ignoring the laws of time, too. probably not to the same extent, but enough to see the things the shrine wants you to see.” 

mark studies his bracelet, the same one those boys have. he wonders, if his bracelet tied him to the shrine, then maybe their bracelets tied them to him. so that, in this shrine where mark could exist in future, they who already lived there could see him. 

“by the way,” yuta adds, and mark glances over to him, “i think you forgot that you promised my granny you’d come by today, right?” 

“oh, shit, dude,” mark says. “sorry, i’ve been really distracted all day.” 

“it’s cool,” yuta says. “i told her you have a lot on your plate right now. she and i are trying to dig up whatever we can on the comet and how to evacuate the town. if we figure anything out, we’ll tell you, alright?” 

mark nods. “thanks,” he says. “i --” he looks at yuta, then at johnny. “i’m going to try to figure something out, with, uh… with the others in the future,” he says. “i can’t… i can’t let this comet take our town away.” 

yuta and johnny both smile. 

“i’ll help, then,” johnny says. “i can’t do much about this, uh, future shit you can do, mark, but i can help look for ways to get the town evacuated.” 

“then, while we try and work things out in the present -- you get information out of those boys in the future. sound like a plan?” yuta asks. 

“yeah,” mark smiles, and it’s a big smile. somehow, despite everything that’s going on, he feels hope now -- a surprising amount of hope. “thanks, guys.” 

“then,” yuta says, “head home now, you two. and try not to come here at night again, okay?” 

“yeah, whatever,” johnny shrugs. 

“sorry about that, really,” mark says. 

and with that, the three of them leave the cave, their hope renewed. 

mark’s not really sure how his whole ‘meeting the others in his dreams’ thing works, but it seems like whatever forces bring them together seem to understand what he needs. his dreams bring him to the shrine once again -- though right now, it’s empty. he sits before the altar, brushing his fingers against the carved stone. 

“it’s thanks to you that i can meet them,” mark murmurs softly to it. “you brought me here. but things like figuring out what connects me and them, and figuring out how to save everybody… those are things i have to do myself, right?” 

he settles down silently against one of the walls of the cave and waits. 

in the end, the six boys come ten minutes late. even in this dream -- though mark doesn’t really think at this point it qualifies as dreams necessarily -- his phone works, and it’s 8:10 when they arrive. he doesn’t hear them approach, doesn’t get any warning; he’s just sitting, phone in his hand, worried they’re not going to show up at all, and suddenly he hears, 

“-- and if that happens i swear to god, chenle, i will --” 

and all of a sudden they’re in the cave, appearing out of thin air before him, wispy semi-translucent figures and all. mark and the boy speaking -- donghyuck, he remembers -- make eye contact, eyes wide. 

“oh,” donghyuck says. 

“uh,” mark says. 

there’s silence. 

“you’re here,” donghyuck says. “that’s, uh. that’s good.” 

“yeah,” mark says. “good.” at a loss for what else to say, feeling suddenly unbearably awkward, he says the first thing that comes to his mind, which happens to be, “you’re late.” 

“it’s chenle’s fault,” jisung says immediately. 

“i’m sorry!” chenle squeaks, in the indignant tone of one who has no doubt been thoroughly verbally assaulted for whatever he did to make them late. 

“he forgot his phone in the restaurant we went to for breakfast and didn’t realize until we were already on the bus, so then we had to take a bus all the way back and find it.” renjun elaborates helpfully. 

“oh,” mark says. 

“i really am sorry,” chenle says, turning to mark now, and sounding a good bit less annoyed. “i really didn’t want to make us late. this is like a, uh -- a big deal, or whatever.” 

somehow, mark can’t help but snort. “yeah,” he says, amused. “or whatever.”

“i hope you weren’t waiting long,” jeno adds. he’s the first one to move, walking to one side of the cave and placing his bag, and that seems to bring the rest of the group alive. there had been an awkward standstill after their entrance, but now they mill about, putting down bags if they have them (mark notices a shopping bag that he just knows is full of nothing but snacks) and settling down. they start to find places in the cave to sit or stand, and the way they do it is so natural, the fluid motions of people who are so comfortable and used to each other that they move in sync. 

mark doesn’t really process that he was asked a question until jeno, having placed his bag and settled standing against the wall, sends him a questioning glance. “oh, uh, no, it’s alright,” mark says. “i wasn’t waiting that long.” 

the wall that jeno settles against is on the opposite end of the cave from mark (which, really, isn’t all that far away). he’s dropped his bag down on his left side, and jaemin stands against his right, chenle sitting by their feet like their small child that needs to be watched (with the bag of snacks at his own side). the other three get themselves situated on mark’s side of the cave, as if instinctively splitting themselves in the most efficient way possible. this ends up with jisung standing against the wall not too far from mark, cracking a grin about some stupid thing chenle said from the other end of the cave that somehow mark hadn’t caught, while renjun sits on the ground. this time he doesn’t remind mark of a child like chenle did -- mostly because he seems to be nursing quite a headache. while it’s at least half just a joke (mark can tell from the way he catches jaemin’s eyes and grins) it’s at least half not a joke, and mark thinks they’ve maybe had quite a day. and it’s only eight in the morning. 

though, if they had as much trouble sleeping as mark did last night, then maybe they had quite a night, too. 

meanwhile, the last one to move at all is donghyuck, who mark thinks has kind of been staring at him for a while. not so long that it’s too weird, but everyone’s basically completely settled down before he finally moves, which ends up leaving him to either fill the space in the corner of the cave by chenle, or in the space between mark and renjun. 

he sits next to mark. 

“by the way, um,” jaemin speaks up, “we’re sorry about really springing, well, everything on you last time. that was tactless of us.” 

“no, it’s alright,” mark shakes his head. “i mean, it shocked me, but… i’m glad that i know. or, well, i think i needed to know.” 

“yeah,” jaemin says. he has a weak smile on his face. for him, standing there in the future, it’s probably even more of a tragedy than it is for mark, still waiting in the past. 

for all the million things that they should all have to say, no one seems to be able to speak easily. mark had thought he himself had so much he needed to say, but now that he’s here, all of those words are evading him. he can’t seem to recall a thing. 

chenle is the one who breaks first. all he says, though, is, “so, uh. you’re from canada, huh?” 

another amused grin comes to mark’s face. “yeah,” he says. “we moved here for my dad’s work.” 

“interesting place to work,” renjun notes. 

“well, his work is in tokyo, actually,” mark says. “houses here just like… sell for really cheap, compared to in tokyo.” 

renjun gives a nod of understanding. 

again, a silence settles among them, and mark thinks,  _ oh god, maybe dealing with the awkwardness will be harder than saving my entire town. oh no.  _

this silence, however, doesn’t last very long. 

“do you ever have these feelings?” donghyuck blurts out, taking mark by surprise. his eyes are wide, intent, maybe a little confused. “like, um,” he flounders now, searching for the right words. “like there’s someone who isn’t there, but they should be. like you’re, uh…” 

“you’re looking for something,” mark says, “for someone.” 

“and they aren’t there,” donghyuck says.

they stare at each other, and the awkwardness is gone. all there is now is that understanding, that near painful understanding, and that heavy, heavy heartbeat. 

_ oh,  _ mark thinks.  _ here it is.  _

“i think we’re connected,” donghyuck breathes out. there’s a tightness to his words, something in his eyes and his voice that tells mark that donghyuck’s throat is clenching just as mark’s is, that his heart must be beating as hard and his thoughts must feel as loud. 

mark swallows, and those words feel so heavy now. “i do too.” 

there’s so much emotion in donghyuck’s eyes, boring right into mark’s own, so much sincerity and fear and hope and uncertainty and relief and -- and oh god, this is so much, so much, and mark is rooted to the spot, and he wants to stay, but he wants to run -- and he wants to be here with them. 

“sometimes i have this voice in my head,” donghyuck says. “a voice that -- that knows someone that i don’t know, that makes me think about a person i’ve never met. but i -- i still feel like i know them, i do, even though i’ve never met them, and -- and whenever i’m walking around this town i feel like i’m going to suffocate, because everything is gone and yet everything is  _ here.  _ like i can feel it. the -- the life, the town, the people, and -- 

donghyuck’s breath catches; or was it mark’s own breath? 

but he thinks, really, they’re just breathing in sync. 

_ “and you.”  _

it takes mark a moment to realize he’s crying.

the tears slide quietly, slowly down his cheeks, and it’s only when he notices his own that he even notices donghyuck’s. there’s a quiet sniffle from some corner of the cave, and a sense of reality starts to set back in. and now he can feel more than his own heart, can hear more than just his thoughts and donghyuck’s voice. the cool of the cave floor is back, along with the gentle sound of wind. but it doesn’t feel the same as it did mere minutes ago, when the seven of them still felt a little something like strangers. now it feels gentle, familiar. 

he thinks it feels like home -- like anywhere with the six of them could be home. 

it’s now that he finally looks at the other five, who are watching over them with gentle, smiling eyes. they’re all tearing up, too; jisung’s crying like a little baby, renjun standing now to comfort him, and mark thinks it makes so much sense, that jisung is a crybaby -- that it feels so right, so familiar. he wonders how many of those things there are, things about the other six that he hasn’t gotten to know yet, that he wants to know so badly. 

“we have years to catch up on,” he says, a choked laugh bubbling out of him. “i think we -- we started just a little late, huh?” 

“late is better than never,” donghyuck smiles. “and i don’t think we’ll have too much trouble. but first…” 

mark nods, and he wipes away at his tears. “first, we’d better figure out how to get me out of this mess.” 

“we only have two days until the comet hits,” renjun says (he’s still rubbing jisung’s back to comfort him). “we need to evacuate the town by then.” 

“i don’t think i can just say, ‘there’s a comet coming, we need to run’, though,” mark says. 

“probably not,” jaemin agrees. “could we, like… fake a natural disaster warning?” 

“i don’t think that’s how those work,” jeno says. 

“but didn’t kun say something about some old documents that burned up having to do with the comet?” chenle says. 

“documents?” mark asks. “are you talking about the stuff that burned up in the fire at the shrine?” 

“there’s no way for us to get any information about those. would you be able to find anything?” jeno asks mark. 

“i mean, i’ve talked to the people who run the shrine, but they don’t know much either -- at least regarding the festival and the comet.” mark says. 

“oh, yeah,” jisung says, and then he clears his throat unconvincingly. “you know yuta, right?” 

“did you guys meet him?” mark asks. 

“he came here to talk to us about the town,” renjun says. “he’s the one who gave me the idea to leave you a message.” 

mark scratches at the back of his head, eyes downcast. “yeah, i read his message.” 

“hey, it’s okay,” donghyuck reaches out, his hand grabbing mark’s, and it’s not the sort of intimacy that’s normal between people who’ve known each other for a couple of days -- but they’ve known each other for much longer than that. unfortunately, his hand just goes through mark’s anyway, but they disregard that, letting their hands dwell in the same place, even if they can’t feel each other’s touch. “we’ll change history. whatever it takes.” 

“history for you; the future for me,” mark mumbles, a little absentmindedly. he’s looking at their hands, at the way they interlap, and at donghyuck’s hand over his, and something is weird -- weirder than usual. he looks up to donghyuck and -- yeah, something’s definitely off. “are you… getting more see-through?” 

donghyuck blinks. he looks down at himself, confused, before he looks at mark and says, “oh. i think you might be, too. for me.” 

mark glances at the other six, and it’s slowly becoming even clearer that, yes, the six of them are ever so slightly more translucent than they were when they first arrived. and the place where donghyuck is holding his hand, mark can tell that donghyuck’s hand is there, but it’s a faint feeling, nothing but a feathery touch.

“oh, fuck,” donghyuck whispers. “you’re fading, aren’t you?” 

“oh, fuck,” mark agrees. 

“wait, you’re fading?” chenle asks. “why?” 

“i -- i don’t know,” mark says, and he’s feeling the panic build up, like he’s a boiling pot and his lid’s about to burst off. and they’re fading faster now, fast enough to make him feel so scared, so uncomfortable, and he thinks he might just vomit right now. 

_ fuck, no -- no, no, no, we need more time, we’re not done yet, i can’t let them go, they can’t leave me again --  _

and mark is barely processing his thoughts, his eyes are burning and his throat is dry and -- and there are hands against his cheeks now, and even though they cannot touch, and even though these hands are fading from view, he can feel warmth emanating from them. 

“mark,” donghyuck says, “you have to find us. uh, three years ago -- seoul high school! go to seoul high school! you can find a way, i’m sure, to -- to bring back the connection.” he’s fading faster and faster now, and mark can barely stand to watch, but he does, he takes in every word like a last lifeline. “you can do it,” donghyuck says, and there’s so much confidence in his voice that mark actually believes him. “find us, okay?” 

mark manages to find his voice in the midst of watching the shadows of the cave start to reflect through donghyuck, and he can only choke out the words, “i will -- i promise.” 

and then they’re gone. 

mark is crying again. the tears rip themselves out of him, and they’re so painful this time, too painful. he clutches at his chest and he misses them more than he’s missed anyone in his life and, god, it hurts so fucking bad. 

but his heaving breaths calm, his tears slow, and he sits in this cave all alone and wipes away his tears. he stands up with a shaky breath, runs a hand through his hair, and attempts to straighten himself out. he leaves the cave, and again, he is enveloped in darkness. when it fades, he is in his bedroom again, chest shaking, eyes wet. 

without hesitation, he throws himself out of his bed, racing out of his room. he doesn’t explain anything to his family as he makes his way out the door. running only by instinct, he heads up the path to goshintai, until he’s back at the shrine he had just been in. he steps in front of the altar, which holds all the same little trinkets as before: the statue, mark’s bracelet -- everything except for yuta’s message. the present remains, just as mark knows it, but the future is gone. he can no longer see it. 

“goodbye, future,” he whispers. the rest, he’ll have to live through himself. 

he picks up his bracelet, and he leaves. somehow, the answer has to come him, so clearly, so simply. perhaps his final gift from this shrine. he runs down the now familiar path, and his eyes are on his phone, quickly scrolling and trying to calculate. he doesn’t notice someone in the distance until he hears a voice say, 

“mark?” 

he looks up and realizes he’s reached the path outside the main part of the shrine. yuta is standing there with his grandma, giving him a confused look. 

“is everything alright?” yuta asks. 

“uh -- yeah,” mark says. “well, no. not really. um, i don’t know.” 

“you seem to be doing something important,” his grandmother says, smiling knowingly. “can we help?” 

“no, it’s okay, i just, uh --” mark glances between the two of them. 

“you’re going somewhere?” yuta’s grandmother guesses, and mark’s not really sure how she knows, but he nods. “we’ll help you get there,” she says. “what do you need?” 

“well, actually,” he says. “a plane ticket to korea.” 

_\-----_

the air is heavy in the silence of the cave. they’ve spent their lives with just six of them, but all of a sudden, it feels suffocating without mark there. donghyuck had held mark’s face in his hands, as best as he could with hands that cannot touch, and the tingling feeling of warmth left in his palms is the only thing that tells him mark really was there. he looks at the others, and their eyes are downcast, pained, and jisung is crying again -- of course he’s crying again -- and jeno meets donghyuck’s eyes, and donghyuck wonders what a picture of pain he must look like to jeno. 

but he tries to crack a grin, anyway, seeking confidence in the warmth that lingers on his hands. “it’ll be okay,” he says, as confidently as he can. “he promised, so… he’ll find us.” 

“right,” jaemin murmurs quietly. “he’ll find us.” 

“stop crying, sungie,” renjun says, lightly elbowing jisung. “we’ll be back with him soon.” 

jisung nods, and then makes a very gross crying noise. 

“let’s go back,” jeno says. 

and they do. 

on the bus back to the city, donghyuck has a dream. it’s as if he’s dreaming through a filter, like he’s watching a scene through glass. he is there, and yet it feels distant; he’s in a place full of light, yet he can’t see clearly. 

there’s sunlight shining on his face. he can feel it clearly, so clearly. he’s standing in a forest, he thinks, or a garden -- somewhere green and vibrant and alive, and he feels like that, too, like he exists here, so brightly alive here. there’s a smile on his face, he realizes, a peaceful smile. it’s shared by the people who are there with him. he can’t see their faces clearly (he wishes he could see their faces clearly), but he knows they’re smiling. 

someone speaks -- a voice that barely seems to exist on the same plane as donghyuck, because it’s distant, yet clear. quiet, but the only thing donghyuck seems able to hear. 

_ “did you know? if we weave bracelets out of red thread, they’ll represent our souls.”  _

donghyuck says something. he’s sure he does, even though he can’t hear the words. it’s some stupid comment, he’s sure, some childish joke. but the next thing he hears is, 

_ “we’ll exchange them with one another. that way, our souls will be tied together. no matter how long it takes, no matter what it takes, when we’re born again in the next life, we’ll find each other.”  _

the dream starts to fade away, before donghyuck can see the rest of it. he’s running, but he doesn’t go anywhere at all. everything is fading into white around him. his hand reaches out, and his fingers brush against a red string, and he tries to grab it but -- 

but he jolts awake, and he’s back on the bus. he can hear the hum of the bus, the quiet chatter of others around them. 

“donghyuck?” jeno is sitting beside him, eyes full of concern. “are you okay?” 

“sorry,” donghyuck mutters. “i’m fine.” 

“but, donghyuck,” jeno says. “you’re crying.” 

and he feels the teardrops splash against his skin. 

“did you have a bad dream?” 

donghyuck wipes away his tears. “no,” he shakes his head. “i guess it was just… too nostalgic.” 

jeno doesn’t push him any further; probably, he can tell there’s too much on donghyuck’s mind. they just sit in silence as the outside world passes them by. and donghyuck feels like he’s been given the piece of the puzzle that he never expected to hold before, and yet somehow, it feels so natural. as if this is of course how it would be. as if everything was so clearly leading up to this realization. 

“seven,” donghyuck murmurs. 

“what?” jeno gives him a confused glance. 

“there were seven of us.” 

he thumbs the bracelet at his wrist, jeno watching him in confusion all the while. and there’s another memory pressing at donghyuck’s mind, resurfacing after years of putting it aside. and now, donghyuck thinks he’s beginning to understand it all. 

he shifts onto his knees so that he can turn and talk to the others (jaemin and renjun) who are sitting in the seats behind them. 

“hey, guys,” he says. 

“what’s up?” jaemin asks. 

“there’s somewhere i need to go.” 

“where?” renjun asks. 

“home.” 

“wait -- as in korea?” jisung pipes up from where he and chenle are sitting across from renjun and jaemin. 

“yeah,” donghyuck says. “there’s something i left at my house; i need to get it.” 

“donghyuck, have you forgotten where we are? you’d need to take a plane to reach home” renjun says. 

“it’s important,” donghyuck says. 

“do you know how expensive plane tickets are? we don’t have --” 

“it’s important,” donghyuck repeats, and this time, renjun hesitates. “i’ll go alone,” he adds. “tickets for one can’t be too bad, right?” 

“it’s already past five,” jaemin says. “will you even be able to get a flight?” 

“i’m sure it’ll be alright,” donghyuck says. “it’s only a two hour flight, anyway. i can probably even make it back by tonight. or early tomorrow.” 

“you’re sure?” jeno asks. 

“i’m sure,” donghyuck says. “it really is important.” 

“what is it?” chenle asks. 

donghyuck smiles. “a bracelet.” 

_\-----_

yuta’s grandmother helps mark buy the tickets. she even pays for it (he tells her she doesn’t need to -- she asks him if his mother will agree to buy plane tickets to korea for no reason, and mark doesn’t protest further). she tells him what to do and how to do it and then, with no further time wasted, yuta drives him to the airport. mark texts his mom that he’s hanging out with johnny, then texts johnny to keep up the lie. at some point, his mom might begin to expect something, but mark just needs time. as much time as he can get. 

enough time to find them. 

inside the airport, mark sits and waits and taps his leg incessantly. he listens to music, tries to calm himself down, and it definitely doesn’t help at all. he keeps thinking about how to find them, what he’ll do. he thinks --  _ all i know is a school, and it’s already past school hours. why couldn’t donghyuck have given me his address or something?  _

the flight to korea goes by in much the same manner; he doesn’t even have those in-flight movies to distract himself with. finally, he lands in korea, and he thanks god that he speaks korean as he asks about the fastest way to reach seoul high school. then he gets on a train headed in the school’s direction, and he takes a deep, steadying breath. 

_ i have to find them,  _ he tells himself. he thumbs the bracelet now returned to his wrist and thinks,  _ no, i  _ will  _ find them.  _

the train passes by unfamiliar scenery, and somehow, he feels as if he has been here before. 

it’s evening when he arrives at seoul high. he feels lucky that there’s anyone there at all, and even more lucky when he runs into a teacher before he even enters the building. 

“is there something you need?” a teacher asks him, as he’s trying to open one of the doors into the school (it’s locked). “what are you doing here so late after hours?” 

“oh, uh, i’m not a student,” mark tells the teacher. “actually, i’m looking for somebody?” 

“who would that be?” the teacher asks. 

“donghyuck,” mark says. he’s reminded now that he doesn’t know donghyuck’s full name. 

“ah, donghyuck,” the teacher says. “i have one in my class, actually. quite the troublemaker. in his third-year, yes?” 

mark doesn’t know this either, but he still nods. the teacher seems a little bit fond of donghyuck. 

“at this time of day, you can probably find him out and about with his friends,” the teacher says. “you don’t have his phone number?” 

mark shakes his head. 

“well, i’d feel uncomfortable giving a student’s address away,” the teacher says. “what is it you need him for, anyway?” 

“there’s something i need to give him,” mark says. “something very important.” 

the teacher frowns at him, contemplating, and mark starts chanting a prayer in his head. 

“your best chance is probably to wait till tomorrow,” the teacher says. “but if it really is this important, he did tell me he has tutoring after school today. i can tell you where that is.” 

mark thanks the teacher profusely (maybe a little too much so, because he receives a weird look for it), and the teacher gives him the address, as well as directions to it. it’s not far from the school, but mark has to take yet another train to get there. he’s also warned that there’s a chance donghyuck will be done with tutoring by the time mark arrives. 

standing there on the bus, he can’t help but think that this must be a path donghyuck has taken time and time again. he feels the wind brush past him, like the memory of donghyuck walking past. 

_ he would take this train to tutoring,  _ mark thinks.  _ there’s probably someone he talks to on the ride. maybe one of the others. he’ll take a train to tutoring, to school, maybe even to the library. he must’ve pretended to study, while actually playing games on his phone. it’s just something he would do.  _

and mark finds himself lost, so deeply lost, in the familiarity with which he can imagine donghyuck’s daily life. this city -- it’s as if he sees it through donghyuck’s eyes more than his own. 

it’s there, in that moment, that the train arrives at the station. and it’s then, as he is thinking about donghyuck, that he catches sight of that very same boy. making his way, already, onto the very same train -- but entering from a door a ways away from the one through which mark is exiting. he’s got a bag slung over his shoulder, and he’s distracted by notecards in his hands that he’s shuffling through. 

mark backtracks immediately, stepping back onto the train (and bumping into someone as he does), and then he begins to scramble through the train, even as it begins to move. he passes through doors, making his way through seas of people, and then, finally, he finds himself standing right before donghyuck. he’s got one hand holding onto a hanging strap, keeping himself steady, and the other is awkwardly flipping through notecards as he studies. he’s absentmindedly mouthing the words to himself as he does so, and something about it is so unbearably endearing to mark. even three years younger than the donghyuck mark knows now, it feels as if so very little has changed about him. the donghyuck mark knows has hair that’s a bit different, and his jaw has set a bit more. but this is still donghyuck, through and through, and mark knows. he can feel it. 

but he knows, too, that when he quietly calls donghyuck’s name, and when donghyuck looks up at him, that donghyuck does not know him. not yet. 

“in three years,” mark says quietly, “you’ll understand.” and he pulls off his bracelet and presses it into donghyuck’s hand. 

the train pulls into the station, and mark gets off. 

_\-----_

when they were twelve years old (or maybe thirteen, donghyuck’s memory isn’t perfect, sue him), he and the rest of dream made red bracelets of braided cord. it had been a sudden, silly idea, and for some reason they all knew how to make them. as if they’d done it a million times before, and without questioning it at all, they braided bracelets with red cord. and every day from then on, they continued to wear those bracelets. they’d never known why they didn’t question it, but they never questioned that either. to this day, donghyuck can’t recall how they made the bracelets. 

but by chance, donghyuck had found himself in possession of two different bracelets. he hadn’t questioned that, either. he hadn’t understood what it meant. that day, three years ago, only two days before the stars came falling. 

it wasn’t something he remembered, not until this moment. it had been like a hazy moment of his life, one that maybe happened or maybe didn’t. his only proof of it was the second bracelet -- and even then, he never could recall for sure who had given it to him. 

he knows now, knows as if he had never forgotten. he knows, he’s sure, because he’s finally caught up in time to the moment where he would need it. 

the first bracelet donghyuck made is not the one he wears on his wrist. maybe it was instinctive, or maybe he thought the new bracelet looked a little bit nicer, or maybe it was just fate taking its course, but ever since he had received a second bracelet from mark lee three years ago, he had switched out the bracelet he made with his own hands for this one that mark had given him. and now, with his dream fresh in mind, he knows exactly what they need to do. 

he just hopes what mark did works. 

an hour later, the others drop donghyuck off at the airport and tell him to come back as quickly as he can. he promises them he will. 

by some great luck (and really, donghyuck think has never been one to believe in fate, but he might be willing to change that now, because it certainly feels as if fate is working her ass off for him), he was able to get tickets for a plane leaving in an hour, and it leaves without more than a fifteen minute delay. and finally, by late in the evening, donghyuck finds himself back in seoul. he doesn’t waste any time making his way back home. he doesn’t even have his key on him (it’s in his dorm) but there’s no time to waste. 

he rings the doorbell to his home (another hour has passed) near incessantly, and his mother swings the door open with an irritated expression. it falls away to be replaced by confusion when she sees donghyuck standing at the door. 

“donghyuck?” she says. “what on earth are you doing here? aren’t you supposed to be in japan?” 

“sorry, mom, no time to explain!” donghyuck says, already racing into their home. “i’ll tell you all about it later -- and i swear the money for the plane tickets will come out of my own pockets!” 

“wait, what? plane tickets?” 

and it’s only by very desperately explaining to his mother that he really cannot waste any time, and that, yes, he did have to buy tickets back to and out of korea, and yes, he’ll pay for it with his funds from his job at college, and, fine, he’ll accept not getting a birthday present for this crazy stunt, and sorry, but this is the most important thing he’s ever done in his entire life, and he absolutely has to go. 

it’s the pure desperation in his eyes, in everything he says, that makes his mom reluctantly step aside. 

“just, whatever you’re doing, be safe,” she tells him, and he presses a kiss to her cheek and then sprints out of the house, a second red bracelet tucked safely into his pocket. 

it’s with that bracelet kept close to himself that, a good five hours later, when the days have already changed, he lands back in japan, where the others (save for chenle and jisung, who have been put to bed like good little children) come to pick him up from the airport. 

“you have what you need?” jeno asks. 

“got it right here,” donghyuck says, pulling the bracelet out of his pocket to show it off. “as long as the first exchange worked, i’ll be able to give it to him soon.” 

“the first exchange?” jaemin echoes. 

donghyuck smiles. “let’s go to the hotel, guys,” he says. “i’ll explain on the way there. about the dream i had today. about… us.” 

“what does that mean, donghyuck? you’ve been so confusing about this whole thing,” renjun says. 

“well,” donghyuck says, “the six -- no, the seven of us. we’ve known each other for so much longer than we ever thought. it’s been at least -- at least one _ lifetime.”  _

after years of considering himself a realistic person, donghyuck is coming to accept things he had never done so before. not just fate, but life after death. reincarnation. 

“the reason we’re tied to mark, the reason he feels like a missing piece of us, is because that’s the way we wanted it to be,” donghyuck says. “we tied ourselves to each other so that even beyond death we would find each other.

_ “and now we have.”  _

donghyuck and the others head back to the hotel, and they wake up chenle and jisung, and in the darkness of the night they talk. they talk about donghyuck’s dream, about mark, about a life they’ve lived before. none of them remember it, except for donghyuck, and all he has is that one memory. but that memory, it told a story of a lifetime -- a lifetime where they were together as seven, where they were closer than family. and whatever happened to them afterwards, they always stayed that way; they always remained tied to each other. and those bracelets that they exchanged with each other; they kept them connected even across time itself, even across lifetimes. 

for years, there’s just been six of them. and they loved each other, they did, but it always felt off. it always felt like something was missing. 

now, they know what was missing -- they know  _ who  _ was missing. and they’ll do anything to keep him alive. 

three years ago, donghyuck received a bracelet from a boy he did not know. he didn’t know why he got that bracelet, and he didn’t know what it meant. but now, three years later, a force beyond his understanding -- a force that, perhaps, he will name ‘fate’ -- has brought him to that boy, and has brought him to the answer he had so long sought out. he understands what he was missing; he understands what he must do. 

through that bracelet, once again, the great force of fate moves to action. 

and so donghyuck wakes up in the past. 

it’s a conclusion he comes to nearly instantly. there are people around him, walking all around him. he’s sitting in a place he has been many times before -- but never has it been alive like this. never has he seen people there, living and breathing, unharmed by any imminent danger. he has not seen the standing buildings, the streets undamaged. he has not seen their daily, normal life, before everything changed in the worst of ways. 

it’s a terrible choking sensation, the realization that he’s here, that they are all alive and so soon they will not be alive if he doesn’t do something. as if he will stop breathing, as if his world will stop turning. 

but it passes just as soon as it came, because he is not here alone. he has ‘dream’ by his side, his five best friends, coming to consciousness just as he had, going through the same shock he had. and there’s someone standing there, standing right before them with wide eyes, and the moment donghyuck sees him, that pain subsides. and he smiles. 

“hey, mark. what’s up?” 

_\-----_

mark has a dream, the night before the comet hits. it’s the last of these dreams that he ever has. 

it’s a dream about a goodbye. 

he sees himself, and six others. he sees it like a montage, scene after scene, showing him a goodbye they knew was coming, a goodbye they dreaded but accepted. he sees lingering hugs, too scared to let go and have it be the last. he sees tears cried through songs, shaking hands holding each other tight. he sees a song on a quiet night, the lights off and their voices soft, sharing with one another something the rest of the world will never know. he sees feelings that cannot be understood by anyone other than those who were there, who experienced this love and connection that changed their lives. he sees in every touch, every word they exchange, years worth of growing up, of love, of tears and smiles and successes and regrets. he sees a life shared with others, and he sees them say goodbye to that. 

and then, though it comes blurry, as if he sees it through tears, he sees it begin again. a second chance, a new coming together, where they’ll cry and smile and all those things once again, in different ways. and it’s good, all of it is so incredibly good, because they do it together. as long as they’re together, none of the pain hurts as much, and all the happy things are brighter, and every success is worth more, and every failure teaches them more. 

mark sees this all, and feels it all, and knows it all. he has not cried those tears, he did not live through those moments, and yet it all exists within him. somewhere inside of him, sheltered by the red thread that binds them all together. and in the same way, they exist inside of him. 

and for the first time in every dream he ever had, mark sees their faces. he sees a celebration -- big letters on a banner that spell out ‘welcome back’, and a table decorated with candles and confetti and cake. he sees six others smiling bright, because they’re together again. and when he looks around the room, he can see all of them, in a way he hadn’t gotten to in any other dream. 

he sees jeno standing at the cake, trying to cut it, and jaemin getting in the way, trying to stick his fingers into the cake and lick some, or maybe rub it on mark’s face. he sees chenle and jisung playing some silly game, throwing confetti around and tossing balloons. he sees renjun, pretending to give a speech, overdramatizing it as the others laugh. he sees donghyuck sitting by his side, leaning in to make some silly joke, as he holds mark’s hand under the table. 

he sees, in all of this, endless warmth and endless happiness, the kind so bright and beautiful that it nearly hurts. he sees a life lived and loved, one they couldn’t just abandon, one they couldn’t ever forget. even across lifetimes, even across space and time. 

he stands, and donghyuck looks up at him questioningly, and mark’s eyes burn even as he smiles. 

“i have to go,” he says, though he’s not sure the donghyuck of that dream will hear. even if he does, he will not understand. everything he’s seen here are only moments long past, after all. “if i ever want this happiness to happen again, i have to go to the present. i have to go where we exist now.” 

and so mark steps away from it. from the dreams, from the warmth, from the happiness. he will find one of his own now, a life of his own full of this sort of bright and beautiful love. he will find and protect it, alongside the boys he loves. 

mark wakes up. 

after mark had left the donghyuck of three years ago on the bus, he worried frantically if just giving him a bracelet would be enough. even when his mother scolded him for not telling her ahead of time that he would be spending the night at johnny’s place (the lie johnny told her to cover for mark) and asked why he had taken so long to pick up his phone, mark couldn’t think about anything other than this. he didn’t even know what giving donghyuck his bracelet will do -- it had just felt right in the moment. what if they didn’t reconnect to him -- or what if they didn’t do it in time? there was barely any time left before the comet would hit. 

he needs to save his town, but he can’t do it alone. 

all that worrying seems to have been for naught, though, because the next morning, a mere five minutes into leaving his house to go to school, he’s stopped in the street by the sight of his six friends sitting there, looking confused and, as always, rather wispy. 

donghyuck, in all his audacity, just greets him with, “hey, mark? what’s up?” 

mark raises an eyebrow at him, awkwardly shifts his schoolbag on his shoulder, and whispers (in an attempt not to draw attention to himself), “don’t just ‘what’s up’ me, donghyuck. what are you doing sitting in the middle of the street like this?” 

“don’t you know that best of all?” donghyuck asks, grinning, and he raises his wrist with mark’s bracelet on it. 

“i mean, i didn’t expect  _ this,”  _ he says. 

“uh, for now,” jeno says, watching as chenle reaches his hand out with wide eyes and a childish grin to watch how people can walk right through him, “maybe we should go somewhere else?” 

mark sighs. mostly joking, he says, “i have school, y’know?” 

“and we have limited time, are you really going to talk about  _ school  _ right now?” donghyuck asks. 

mark glances around, thinking, and says, “okay, i know where we won’t be bothered.” 

he leads the other six out of the center of his town, and onto an off-road path. he takes them to a place he goes often -- the lake. 

“no one ever really comes here,” mark tells them, “so we can talk in peace.” 

“good,” donghyuck says, and he reaches into his pocket. “then, hold out your hand.” 

mark gives him a confused look, but holds out his hand anyway. donghyuck takes it and places a red braided bracelet around his wrist. 

“now,” donghyuck says, “the exchange is complete.” he gives mark a big grin, and mark feels like his heart has stopped beating. because,  _ wow,  _ it shouldn’t feel like his entire world is shifting into something new and dazzling by the mere exchange of a bracelet, but it does. and because,  _ wow,  _ donghyuck sure is pretty. 

donghyuck, apparently suddenly feeling a bit awkward, quietly clears his throat, and then turns to the others. “come on, you guys too,” he says. 

“give our bracelets to mark?” jisung asks. 

“no, silly. i told you about my dream, didn’t i? we might as well do it again. to, y’know… deepen the connection, or whatever.” 

the others smile, and they begin to take off their bracelets, which they have worn for so many years. mark watches, still a bit confused, as chenle gives his bracelet to jisung, and jisung gives his to chenle, and renjun gives his to jaemin, and jaemin gives his to jeno, and jeno gives his to renjun, and just like that -- like that, the red thread is bound around each of them, tying them to one another. 

and then mark nudges donghyuck, while the others are all smiling at each other, and he says, “what do you mean by your dream? and why are we exchanging bracelets?” 

“oh, right,” donghyuck says. “i had a dream yesterday. about us.” 

“us?” 

“in another life.” 

and mark -- he blinks once, surprised for a moment, because he hadn’t expected donghyuck to say so confidently what mark had spent so long unsure about. finally, he says, “so you had one too.” 

“you’ve had one before?” donghyuck asks. 

mark smiles, the others now tuned into their conversation. “too many to count,” he says. “i could never see everything completely, and they were so vague at first, but they became clearer over time.” he glances at donghyuck. “what did you dream about?” 

“the bracelets,” donghyuck says, looking into mark’s eyes. “i saw us exchange them; i heard your voice. it was your idea, to connect ourselves like that.” 

mark doesn’t respond to that; there’s nothing he can say. the weight of their past lies upon them like a weighted blanket, and it’s heavy, but not uncomfortable. they’re just not used to it, to being in the presence of the person they have known their whole lives and then some, yet only just met. 

“i wasn’t sure about it for a long time,” mark says, “but we really lived through a whole life together, didn’t we?” 

“it’s weird to think,” jisung says quietly, adjusting the new bracelet around his wrist. “we’ve only just met, but… we’ve also known each other for a long, long time.” 

mark smiles. “i think we’ll get used to it,” he says. “because back then… we meant the world to each other. in a way that won’t disappear even in another life.” 

“you saw us, right?” chenle asks. “we were…” he trails off, with no certain way of finishing it. 

“we were happy,” mark says. “so incredibly happy.” 

there’s a quiet that lingers in the air -- nothing quiet, and nothing sad. just a moment that they each take to understand how much they’ve really been through together, and how deep that connection was to have lasted even now. 

“we’re different people now,” mark says. “maybe not in that many notable ways, but we still are. but even so, i think we, uh… we exist inside of each other. in an unchanging way.” 

“well, even when we hadn’t met,” donghyuck says, “we were always looking for each other, right? i think maybe our ‘selves’ from the past exist in us too, in some way. i think maybe that’s why i’ve always heard a voice in my head. maybe i was helping myself find you. because… when i knew i had to come here, i heard that voice. i heard it say --  _ he needs us.”  _

and mark, with no hesitation, no remaining uncertainty, says, 

“i did.” 

they meet each others’ eyes, and they share in a moment of complete certainty, that regardless of what in life may be fate and what may be something that they must take with their own hands, they are meant to be together. they are meant to find one another. no matter how many times it takes. 

“when,” mark swallows. “when this is all over, let’s… get to know each other. properly, like we haven’t gotten a chance to yet.” 

donghyuck smiles. “yeah, we’ll do that.” 

“but for now,” jaemin says, smiling somewhat sympathetically as he speaks up, “we still haven’t figured out how to save this town.” 

“no matter how much i think about it,” mark says, “i can’t imagine they’ll believe me if i tell them that the comet is going to hit.” 

“actually,” renjun says, “i talked to sicheng and kun about this town last night. apparently, this lake,” he glances at the lake behind them, “was formed by a comet, too -- twelve hundred years ago.” 

“right, i think i heard about that before,” mark nods. 

“i also made a list of which areas were hit by the comet,” renjun says, pulling out his phone. “a lot of people were in the area of the shrine for the festival, which is where a lot of the casualties happened.” 

mark takes the phone from renjun and, with his own phone, takes a picture of the list. he tries not to pay attention to things like that the area where he lives is on the list (it’s hard not to). 

“yuta and his grandma made it out okay, though, right?” chenle says. “so goshintai is far enough from the comet not to be hit?” 

“just barely, it seems,” renjun answers. mark hands him the phone back, and after a moment, renjun shows it to the others to reveal a picture of a map of the town, a section of which is circled in red to represent where the comet hit. (mark takes a picture of the map as well). “sicheng gave this to me -- this is the radius of where the comet hit.” 

“so we want people to evacuate as far away from there as possible.” donghyuck notes. 

“then the best location would be the school, wouldn’t it?” mark says, looking at the map. his high school is directly opposite from where the comet hit. 

“so that gets us back to the question… how do we get people there?” jeno asks. 

“it’d be a lot easier if we could have, like, the mayor just call for an evacuation,” chenle comments. 

donghyuck glances at mark. “you don’t happen to have that kind of reach, huh?” 

mark snorts. 

“maybe you can convince him? there’s no way just you and a bunch of invisible kids from the future can evacuate everyone,” jaemin says. 

mark hums. “the mayor, huh…” 

donghyuck snickers. “do you even know who the mayor is?” 

mark flinches. “of course i do! he’s, uh --” 

donghyuck stares at him. 

“well, y’know… that, uh…” 

donghyuck continues to stare at him. 

“it starts with an ‘m’? i think.” 

the others burst into laughter, and mark smiles sheepishly. “c’mon, cut me some slack,” he says. “anyway, you guys might not be able to evacuate the town, but i can ask for help from my friends. they might be able to help me figure something out.” 

and then mark hears, “figure what out?” and he turns around to see johnny standing behind him. “also, who the hell are you talking to?” 

“good job with that, ‘no one will come here’ thing, huh?” donghyuck whispers at mark, and in retaliation, mark ‘subtly’ steps on his foot. 

“johnny, hey,” mark says, coughing a little when it comes out far too forced and awkward. “aren’t you supposed to be in tokyo?”

johnny shrugs. “skipped class,” he says. “i figured i’d do some digging around for my best friend, anyway. what are you doing here?” 

“uh… also digging around?” 

“at the lake?” 

“well, y’know,” mark says. “a comet hit here, too?” 

“oh, right,” johnny says. “yuta told me about that.” 

“did he?” 

“yeah, we’ve been looking into this together. he’s trying to see if he can find something to convince his dad with,” johnny says. 

“his dad?” mark asks. 

“yeah, y’know. the mayor.” 

donghyuck and the other five immediately burst into laughter, and mark swears to god johnny is going to hear them from literally across the boundary of time at this rate. 

“yuta’s dad is the mayor?” mark asks, trying very hard not to react to the raucous laughter behind him. “but, i think i’d have recognized his last name.” 

“oh, it’s a whole family thing,” johnny says. “legally, yuta has his dad’s last name, but socially he and his sisters go by his mom’s last name. some trouble there, with his dad not wanting to be part of the shrine now that his wife is gone.” 

“oh,” mark says. the others have stopped laughing now too. 

“anyway, you still haven’t answered my question. who are you talking to?” 

mark looks at johnny, and then at donghyuck and the others, and then back to johnny. there are many things he’s told johnny, and this isn’t a secret that he needs to keep, but he thinks it’ll be easier this way. he doesn’t want his friends to be burdened by things or people from the future, or the idea that they themselves might not make it there. “uh, myself,” he says (unconvincingly). 

johnny gives him an amused look. “alright, kid,” he says, fortunately letting it slide. “anyway, have you learned anything useful from ‘the future’?” 

“oh, right,” mark says, reaching for his phone. “i know where the comet will hit.” 

he shows johnny the pictures, and johnny says, “oh, shit. weirder to actually see that… someone in the future made that because we…” 

“i know,” mark says solemnly. for a moment, his heart feels heavy. but a hand reaches into his (subtly, so johnny doesn’t see), and mark glances to the side to see donghyuck giving him a small smile. mark returns it gratefully. 

“anyway,” johnny says, kindly changing the topic, “since you’re already skipping class, why don’t you come over to yuta’s? he should be there with his granny right now.” 

“sure,” mark says, glancing at the others, who nod to tell him they’ll come with. 

johnny leads the way to yuta’s house, where they are greeted by yuta and his grandmother. they come in, have some tea, and share what information they have. meanwhile, the others, invisible as they are, go about exploring yuta’s house, staying mostly within earshot but looking around as they please. only donghyuck stays right by mark’s side, almost seeming hesitant to leave. mark understands, though. it’s as if they are holding on to one another by thin threads, and at any moment those threads may snap, and they may all lose each other again. 

after mark has told yuta what he learned from the others, they change the conversation towards formulating a plan. “the comet hits during the festival tomorrow,” yuta says, uncharacteristically serious. “if we could find some way to convince my father, then we could have a clean evacuation, but if not… we’ll have to resort to desperate measures.” 

“what do you mean?” mark asks. 

“there’s a power plant not too far from here,” yuta says. “if we set up explosives there, we can use that as a reason to evacuate people.” 

“explosives?” mark exclaims. “yuta, that’s --”

“yes?” 

“that’s a crime!” 

“well, yeah,” yuta shrugs. “and the other option is the destruction of this town, so…” 

mark frowns, but falls quiet. he had always thought himself a good, well-behaved kid. apparently, he is now jumping over to the dark side -- though at least for a very, very good reason. 

“this is all just a back-up plan anyway, right?” johnny says. 

“it is, but,” yuta glances between them. “i’ll be honest; the likelihoods of my father believing for any reason that we need to evacuate this town isn’t high… and we’re not exactly on the best of terms.” 

“how will you even get a bomb, anyway?” mark asks. 

“i have connections,” yuta says, grinning. mark decides he’s not willing to push it. “anyway,” he continues, “i’ll talk to my father tonight, so… whatever happens then, we’ll do what we need to do.” 

mark and johnny nod, determination in their eyes. no matter what, the three of them -- 

they aren’t going to let the people in their town die. 

“but, yuta,” mark says, “what are you going to say to your dad?” 

he gives mark a hesitant smile. “i’ll figure something out,” he says. “you can leave that to me.” 

after a while more of talking, yuta and johnny tell mark he can leave the rest of the planning to them, as the ‘adults’ here (mark rolls his eyes good-naturedly), and yuta’s grandmother shows mark out of the house (it is a rather large house). behind him, the other six are following along, with donghyuck walking alongside him. 

“don’t be afraid, mark,” she tells him (in korean). “you have your friends, and the wish you made brought you to this path; you will be able to make things work.” 

mark smiles and says (in japanese). “thank you, grandma.” 

the sun shines down upon them, and mark raises his hand in an attempt to shield his eyes somewhat, as he squints up at the sky. “what nice weather, for something so bad to be happening so soon,” he murmurs, as the rays of light glint across his bracelet. 

“ah, mark, there’s --” mark turns towards yuta’s grandmother, as her eyes go wide in surprise. “there’s someone by your side right now, isn’t there?” 

mark freezes, as does donghyuck, who is standing right by him. mark glances at the others, who look back at him with eyes as wide as his own. 

“can she see us?” chenle asks. 

“grandma, you -- can tell?” mark asks her, his arm dropping down to his side. 

she smiles. “i’ve been working in a shrine all my life. i have a feeling for this sort of thing. so, mark…” she says. “the shrine brought you to them… now, you have brought them to you?” 

mark nods. “the wish was complete, so we found a new way to connect ourselves.” 

“those boys exist in the future, where this town has been destroyed,” grandma says. “the possibility is very, very small, but…” 

“what is it?” 

“the truth is, yu-chan’s chances of convincing my son-in-law of any sort of approaching danger are low, as he said. the possibility of this is even lower, but… if perhaps my son-in-law exists in the future with those boys, they may be able to find a way from him. a way to convince the him of this present that the town must be evacuated.” she stares into mark’s eyes, and says, “you may be able to save this town using your connection to the future.” 

half an hour later, mark stands before donghyuck and the others, back at the lake once again. they stand a little hesitant, a little scared. but to reach the future, mark’s friends must leave the past. and they can only pray… that the threads that bind them continue to last. 

“will we… be able to find each other again?” jisung asks, hesitant. “if we sever the connection now?”

“we’ll be able to connect again. i’m sure of it,” donghyuck says, smiling. mark wonders how much he’s forcing it. he doesn’t push it, though. he just nods, and says, 

“we’ve done it before. in this life, and in another.” 

donghyuck sends him a questioning glance, and he smiles. 

“we left each other. and then we found our way back.” 

“if we did it before, we can do it again,” jaemin says, mustering up a small smile. 

at his side stands chenle, who exclaims, “mark!” and throws himself into mark’s arms. mark just barely catches him. “we’re definitely going to be back soon with a way to convince the mayor! wait for us, okay?” 

mark smiles. “yeah, i’ll be waiting.” 

“if we really don’t return, or it doesn’t work out,” jeno says, “go through with yuta’s plan. hopefully that will be enough.” 

“i know,” mark says. “no matter what, i won’t let the comet take any lives.” 

jeno smiles. “i believe in you, mark.” 

mark smiles back. “and i believe in all of you.” 

“well, then…” donghyuck says, hand reaching for his bracelet. 

“good luck, guys,” mark says, as he mirrors donghyuck’s movements. 

they all nod, and mark meets donghyuck’s eyes. 

“goodbye, for now,” donghyuck says. 

he and mark take off their bracelets. 

and they’re gone. 

_\-----_

that evening, yuta goes to talk to his father. ever since yuta’s mother died, his relationship with his father has been pretty shaky. his father cast aside the family traditions, cast aside the shrine, and chose a life of politics. he disapproved of yuta’s jewelry, and dyed hair, and the fact that he’s not exactly straight. and just as yuta expected, his father doesn’t believe a word yuta tells him. not that the town could be in danger, not that they must evacuate everybody, not even  _ “please, father, i’m begging you; we might not be close, but this is something i absolutely would not lie to you about. because this is the fate of our town -- of your citizens.”  _

yuta is kicked out with his father’s voice ringing in his mind. 

_ “you’re not the son i raised.”  _

“as if you raised me at all,” yuta mutters. he sighs, picks up his phone, and dials a number. “hey, yeah -- i’m going to need those explosives after all.” 

and he gets to work. 

as he does, unbeknownst to him, someone else enters the mayor’s office as well. 

_\-----_

when donghyuck takes off his bracelet (mark’s bracelet), the six of them are immediately returned to the present room, sitting in donghyuck and jeno’s hotel room, where they had crowded together last night. they exchange glances, and they’re all wearing the same determined expression. donghyuck looks out the window, and the sun is still shining high. once it’s set, the town in mark’s time will… 

“let’s get to work,” jeno says. 

when donghyuck checks his phone, there are numerous missed calls and texts from kun and sicheng. he dials back sicheng’s most recent one, but the first thing he hears is kun’s voice saying, 

_ “where the hell have you guys been? are you okay?”  _

“we’re fine,  _ mom,”  _ donghyuck says, as he puts his phone on speaker. 

_ “you wouldn’t open the door to your hotel room this morning,”  _ sicheng says.  _ “and you just ran off yesterday without telling us.”  _

_ “your mom called to tell us you went home, donghyuck,” kun says. “what the hell was that about?”  _

“uh, yeah,” donghyuck laughs awkwardly. “i had some things to take care of.” 

_ “you’re supposed to tell me ahead of time before you go running off,” _ kun says.  _ “i’m basically your chaperone, you know.”  _

“yeah, sorry, sorry,” says donghyuck, who isn’t really very sorry. none of this feels like a very big deal in the face of everything else they’re dealing with. 

“more importantly,” says jaemin. 

_ “more importantly?”  _ kun exclaims. 

“more importantly,” jaemin repeats, ignoring him, “do you know where yuta is? we need to talk to him.” 

_ “yuta?”  _ sicheng asks, while kun can be heard faintly mumbling about ‘ungrateful children’ and ‘troublesome kids’.  _ “what do you need him for?”  _

“there’s something really important we need to talk to him about,” chenle says. 

“it’s really, really important,” jisung adds. 

_ “okay,”  _ sicheng says, calm as ever.  _ “i can give you his phone number.” _

“thank you so much, sicheng,” renjun says. 

_ “anytime,” _ sicheng agrees. _ “but maybe tell us what this is all about later so that kun doesn’t go crazy.” _ there’s a muffled complaint in the background, but sicheng just says,  _ “i’ll text you the number, donghyuck. see ya.”  _

the six of them just barely manage to get in some quick ‘see ya’s in response, and then sicheng hangs up. 

once sicheng has texted him the number, donghyuck calls yuta. there’s a tense silence as the phone rings once, twice, three times. 

and he picks up. 

_ “hello?”  _

“hey, yuta. this is donghyuck.” 

_ “oh, donghyuck. what’s up?”  _ yuta asks. 

“this is gonna sound weird,” donghyuck says, “but there’s something i need to ask you about it.” 

_ “sure, what is it?”  _

“it’s about your dad.” 

there’s a pause on the other end. finally, yuta says, in a somewhat hesitant voice,  _ “my dad? why are you asking about him?”  _

“we need to talk to him,” donghyuck says. 

_ “why?”  _

donghyuck glances at the others. “uh,” he begins, with no idea what to say. it’s not as if they can tell him that they’ve travelled to the past and now they’re trying to save yuta’s hometown from the destruction of the comet. not without being labelled crazy, at least. 

“it has to do with the town,” jeno says. “we can’t really explain better than that, i’m sorry.” 

yuta is quiet for another pause, something contemplative in his silence. finally, he says,  _ “well, i guess i won’t push it then. but, my dad is…”  _

there’s a moment where donghyuck fears that the worst is true, that they won’t be able to do anything for mark at all. “he’s dead?” he asks hesitantly, voice caught in his throat. what do they do if he’s dead? how can they help mark and his town? 

but yuta says,  _ “no, he’s alive. he wasn’t… y’know. but i haven’t spoken to him in a long time. we weren’t all that close before in the first place, and after what happened, well… i think he blames himself, a bit, for what happened. because he abandoned god, because his position was one where he was supposed to protect everybody. my dad’s a bit of an asshole, really, but at the least, he cared about his town.”  _

“if that’s really true,” donghyuck says slowly, “if he really cared about this town, then… that’s all the more reason why we need to talk to him.” 

yuta is quiet, taking in donghyuck’s serious tone.  _ “okay,”  _ he agrees.  _ “i don’t really get it, but i’ll see what i can do for you. i might not be able to set up a meeting, but i can at least get you his address.”  _

“we’ll take whatever we can get,” donghyuck says. “thank you, yuta.” 

_ “sure thing, kid.”  _

an hour later, the six of them find themselves on a train heading for the city where the former mayor lives. yuta comes along with them, because (and they really should have thought to account for this) his father does not, in fact, speak korean. it’s going to be something strange to explain to him -- to either of them -- but for now, they can only sit and pray that it all works. donghyuck keeps checking the time, counting the hours. telling himself in a mantra,  _ we’ll make it on time, we’ll make it on time.  _ they don’t have any other choice. 

though he hasn’t put the bracelet back on yet, it sits in his pocket, both a comforting presence and a constant reminder. maybe mark, yuta, and johnny’s plan will work, and they can save the town anyway. but this is their best shot. and donghyuck will be damned if he lets some stupid comet take mark away from them, when the seven of them were only just reunited again. 

it’s clear in their eyes that the others feel the same way. there is no hesitation any more in their actions. past lives, bonds of red thread, fateful comets -- donghyuck doesn’t really get any of that, and right now, he doesn’t even care about that. he just wants to save mark. he wants to finally have the person he’s been looking for all his life there by his side. 

when donghyuck told sicheng they’d join the history field trip, when he decided to fly all the way to japan under the pretense of nothing more than an exo concert, he’d only had one feeling to base it off of. the feeling that  _ he needs us.  _ and if it was true, if their past life, or their bracelets, or fate, or whatever it was, brought the seven of them together so that they could save mark, then it must mean they at least have a chance. it must mean, in some strange way, while donghyuck and the others exist here three years in the future, they have a chance of saving mark. 

and maybe that chance is this. 

maybe it is a door that opens before them, maybe it is a man with tired eyes and graying hair who stands there in the entrance. 

“hey, dad,” yuta says, a sheepish and hesitant smile on his face. 

whatever sort of father this man is to yuta, whatever rocky relationship they had before, and however that may still be rocky now, what donghyuck sees in the man who was once mayor is nothing hateful or angry at all. there is just a moment of confusion, replaced by something almost like relief. he looks like a tired man, a man who may have pushed people away in the past, who may have struggled with the role he took on, and who lost the woman he loved many years ago. and he may not be a perfect father, but in this moment, where he looks upon the son that he has not seen in years, donghyuck thinks that he must truly love his son. 

“excuse me,” donghyuck says, and yuta translates for him. “there’s something we need to talk to you about.” 

yuta’s father lets them into the house, though clearly confused, and the six of them introduce themselves. then they exchange glances, and through silent communication, donghyuck is elected as the one to explain it. 

he swallows carefully. he takes a deep breath. he looks into the eyes of the former mayor and thinks --  _ here goes nothing.  _

“i’ll be blunt,” donghyuck says. “it will probably be hard for you to believe what i say. but i swear to you, everything that i am about to tell you is the absolute truth.” 

when the words have been translated to him, yuta’s father looks hesitantly at yuta, and then at donghyuck. he nods his head. 

“okay,” donghyuck says. “have you ever been to goshintai?” 

and donghyuck explains it all. that mark made a wish, that the seven of them were brought together, that forces that cannot be explained, at least not by science, have brought about a possibility in which a simple teenage boy who lives in the past may have a chance to save everyone. that if the mayor -- as in, if this man, but in the past -- does not evacuate the town, his own son will set explosives at a power plant and do everything in his power to make the town evacuate (yuta stares at donghyuck in shock as he translates all of this, but his eyes grow even wider at this information). but that the best course of action, the most sure course of action, would be to get the mayor’s approval. 

and the one person with the best chances of doing that is the mayor himself. 

“that’s you, sir,” donghyuck says. “even if you may not believe the things that i am telling you, i know that you must care about your town. if there is even the slightest chance that you could save them, wouldn’t you take it? wouldn’t you want to help the people you couldn’t help three years ago? i am telling you right now, we are that chance. and for us,  _ you  _ our are chance. just like you have all those people you want to save, we have someone we dearly want to save. so please, please. help us find a way to convince the you of the past to evacuate the town.” 

yuta, though indeed with hesitation and wide eyes, has translated all of this to the mayor. he’s side-eyeing donghyuck the whole time, clearly very unsure about the words coming out of his mouth, but he does it all the same. in him, donghyuck can see the yuta of the past who fought to save that town, who believed in the traditions of his family, and who helped mark when he was lost. 

there’s a long, fearful silence after yuta’s father has heard everything they have to say. donghyuck can hear his own heartbeat thudding against his chest, and he thinks at any moment it may just break free. 

just before that can happen, yuta’s father speaks. 

“i never understood my wife’s belief in her god,” he says (as translated by yuta). “if she had lived longer, or if i had not run away… perhaps something would have been different. i thought that many times. she told me that if i had faith in something -- not even in her god, but in anything at all. if i had faith, then i would be strong, the way she was strong. every day since that comet fell, i have regretted it. maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference. but i should have stayed. i should have had faith. if not in god, then…” 

he looks up, meets his son’s eyes, and their gazes are both so deeply emotional. donghyuck can see it all -- the loss they’ve gone through, the years they’ve spent apart, the wish to come back together that both of them were too scared to follow through with. now, finally, they are here, and yuta’s father has a chance to do all the things he didn’t do before. 

“i should have had faith in my family,” he says. when he holds yuta’s gaze, the regret is so clear in his eyes. and in yuta’s eyes -- 

in yuta’s eyes, there is forgiveness. and a possibility to heal, all those years later. 

finally, yuta’s father turns his gaze to donghyuck. “i cannot swear that even i can convince myself. i was a stubborn man in those days. but i think this might be able to work. please, tell this to me.” 

he writes it down on a piece of paper and gives it to donghyuck. 

“please,” he whispers, “please save them.” 

and donghyuck has only met, past or present, a couple of people from the destroyed town, but he thinks he sees reflected in this man’s eyes the lost lives of those killed by the comet.

“we will,” donghyuck says. the words feel heavy in his mouth. all the same, he believes them -- he has to. 

_ although,  _ he thinks,  _ we won’t be doing the actual saving.  _

the rest, after all, is now up to mark. 

_\-----_

somewhere in a small traditional town in japan, a festival is soon to begin. 

the sun is setting in the sky. the hours until the comet falls are few. all the same, the people of this town prepare for a festival, knowing nothing of the danger. and at this time, having fallen asleep in their hotel rooms, donghyuck and the others return to the past, just in time to take action. 

donghyuck opens his eyes to the view of the lake. it’s a view that has become familiar to him by now. sitting on the grass, letting his bare feet soak in the water, is mark. it’s as if the bracelets know how to find each other -- and perhaps they do. 

for one strange, short moment, donghyuck sees this view as if through a film, and it’s just a bit different. it’s mark, and it’s the six of them watching him, and it’s the water -- but they stand before an ocean, and and the sun casts its golden rays upon mark’s skin. 

and then the vision fades, and donghyuck sees reality again; he sees the lake, and mark as he is now. in this moment, donghyuck feels something inside him slip away -- some voice that will remain silent forever, some vague memories that will never return again. he needs them no longer. he has found his path; he has found that which he has always reached for. 

“hey,” donghyuck says softly. 

mark turns, and a smile lights up his face, something gentle and kind. illuminated by the setting sun, it seems to shine even brighter. “hey,” he says, just as soft. “i was worried you wouldn’t make it.” 

“well, how could we let you down?” donghyuck says.

“then, you found him?” mark asks. the six of them break into matching smiles, and donghyuck nods. 

“he gave us this,” donghyuck says, reaching into his pocket and retrieving the message yuta’s father wrote. “he says if you tell him this, he might listen to you.” 

mark nods and accepts the paper. “then,” he hesitates, a million doubts running through his mind, donghyuck is sure. many of the same doubts are in his. the comet was an event that happened three years ago, something he thought nothing of at the time. now, here they are, trying to rewrite it. 

will it work? and, whether it does or not -- 

what happens to them now? 

quietly, mark dares to ask it. “what now?” 

“you go talk to him,” jeno says. “and, hopefully, you save your town.” 

“and after that,” renjun continues softly, “chances are… we won’t remember it all. i don’t exactly know how rewriting history works, but even yuta in the future doesn’t remember what happened this week.” 

“not to mention the three years of time between us,” chenle adds. 

“then, will we…?” jisung looks around at the others, but he can’t seem to bring himself to say it. 

mark takes a steadying breath, and when his eyes meet donghyuck’s, there’s certainty in them. “it’s okay,” mark says. “we’ll find each other somehow. we’ve done it before, right?” mark smiles, and looks at the bracelet around donghyuck’s wrist, then at his own. “you hold onto my bracelet, and i’ll hold onto yours. and then, i’ll go and find you in the future. even if we don’t remember meeting each other, we’ll know. i’m sure we’ll know. our connection goes beyond even just one lifetime, right? and when we find each other, we can start again. the right way.” 

behind him, on the distant horizon, the sun inches towards its complete descent. and as it does, donghyuck sees mark get fainter. all the world around them seems to be losing its color. 

and mark must see a similar thing, because even though he smiles, it’s a sad smile, and his eyes are tearing up. “it looks like… you’re fading away again.” 

_ don’t go,  _ donghyuck thinks.  _ please, don’t go.  _

“i think the present is being rewritten,” renjun says. “so now…” 

“it’ll be as if we never crossed the boundaries of time,” jeno finishes. 

_ i’m tired of losing you.  _

“but we’ll know, right?” jaemin asks, but it’s a little like he needs the confirmation too. “even if we don’t remember, we’ll know.” 

“yeah,” mark says, and a tear slips down his cheeks. “we’ll know.” 

_ i want to stay with you.  _

somehow, donghyuck finds his voice, despite the lump in his throat and the shaking of his hands. “mark,” he says, and when mark’s eyes meet his he is overcome with the desperate urge to say it, before he loses his chance. “i l--” 

the sun sets. 

mark is gone. 

_ i love you.  _

_\-----_

somewhere in the town where mark lives, his friends are setting up a bomb. 

there’s no light left in the sky save for faint moonlight. the festival is beginning. people are talking and laughing and playing, and none of them know what is to come. but yuta and johnny know, and they talk in hushed voices as they carry the explosives to the power plant. for all that they may fear the consequences, they fear losing everyone they know and love more. 

and mark, he is running, running, running. there’s not even an hour left, he knows. there is so much in his mind right now. six boys who he already dearly misses, a town that he can’t bear to lose, a comet approaching too quickly. so he runs, to save who he can save, to give himself a chance to meet them again. he runs, and he hears a voice ringing out in his head, and he thinks -- 

_ was he going to say ‘i love you’?  _

and he wishes they’d had longer. long enough to hear it, long enough to say it, long enough to know each other in normal ways, too -- rather than those that transcend time and death and fate. so as he runs, he tells himself they’ll get it. time to know each other, time to love each other, time to stay together. 

above him, the comet comes into view, as it begins to move towards its peak. people point and stare as it lights up the night sky, a stunning display of light and color. but mark knows what it means, and he can only run even faster. 

he goes through the others’ names in his head, a mantra, reassuring him both that he is not alone and that he can remember them. a name for every step he takes as he tries desperately to make it in time. he’s not sure he’s ever run this fast in his life, nor has he ever felt this desperate, nor has a goodbye ever felt this lonely. but he says their names, and he runs, and finally, he bursts through the door of the mayor’s office. 

and he does not remember their names. 

“who are you?” the mayor, yuta’s father, stands from where he was sitting at his desk. “what are you doing here?” 

mark’s panting so hard he’s practically wheezing, and he is trying desperately to remember their names, but they’re gone. as the memories slip from his grasp, blurring even as he stands here and thinks, he closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. 

_ even if we don’t remember, we’ll know.  _

and he knows. he may not remember their names, but he knows that he loves them. he may be losing hold of the memories, but he knows that they are precious to him. he may forget more soon, but he at least knows what it is he must do. while the future still exists in him to some extent, while he still has what they gave to him. 

he must save this town. 

“my name is mark lee,” he says. “very soon, a comet is going to hit this town.” 

the mayor’s eyes narrow. “were you sent by my --” 

“please listen to me,” mark interrupts him. there is no time to waste nor to falter. “i have a message from the future. a message from you.” 

he takes the paper out of his pocket, the last remaining piece of his six friends’ existences in the past. he reads, and as he does, the words disappear from the page, as the future disappears from the past. 

_ “i was once the mayor of a precious town. i no longer am, because that town was destroyed by a comet. i will prove to you, my stubborn self of the past, that i am telling the truth.  _

_ i always told my wife that i did not believe in god. but when she fell ill, i did something that i would never tell anyone about. i went to my wife’s shrine, and i prayed to her god. i prayed that she would be healed. but she still died. in my pain, i threw everything aside. i believed that a god who could not save my wife was no god at all. and a husband who could not save his wife was just as much a failure. but i should not have forgotten what she said to me when she fell ill.  _

_ she said, ‘i do not fear death, for we leave a piece of our soul in those that we are truly close with. so i will exist inside of you, inside of our children, inside of my mother. and some day, that piece of me in you, and the piece of you in me, will guide us back to one another. even if you don’t believe in god, i hope you’ll believe this.  _

_ lost souls always find their way home.’  _

outside the window, like a scene from a dream, a piece of a comet comes falling from the sky. 

_\-----_

when donghyuck wakes up on the last day of their field trip, he’s crying. 

he doesn’t know why. 

there’s a loud knock at the door, and when he wipes away his tears and wearily pushes himself out of bed to open it, he’s greeted by chenle and jisung, jumping up and down excitedly. 

“are you ready? are you ready?” chenle asks. 

donghyuck grins. “hell yeah, i’m ready! after all, this is what we came to japan for!” 

when he says that, though, he gets a strange feeling. 

was this… really all they came to japan for? 

but he can’t think of another reason why, so he puts the question aside. anyway, what could have motivated him to come all this way other than an exo concert? 

but even at the concert, as he and the others pour their all into the fan chants, some little part of him keeps searching the crowd, the doors, everywhere. but he doesn’t know what he’s searching for. 

after the concert, they return to the town to meet up with kun, sicheng, and all the others. history isn’t all that interesting to donghyuck, but he figures the concert was so good that it was worth even listening to kun ramble on about history. 

“one of the most interesting parts of the events surrounding the comet that hit this town three years ago,” kun tells them, “is how the almost the entire town safely evacuated in time. it’s almost like they knew the comet would hit.” 

donghyuck’s eyes are drawn in the direction of the lake. for a moment, he almost feels as if he will see someone calling to him there. no one is there. 

yet he can’t shake the feeling that someone once was. 

_\-----_

**_five years after the comet_ **

for as long as he could remember, mark would have these dreams. 

he doesn’t have them anymore these days; in fact, he hasn’t in many years. they stopped inexplicably, that day five years ago, when a comet came falling from the sky. 

and yet, even after they stopped, mark cannot shake this feeling that he is always searching for something, for someone. 

today, he stands outside of his newly-bought apartment, attempting to lock the door as he balances his phone between his shoulder and ear. 

_ “how are you adjusting to korea, mark?”  _ johnny asks him from the other end. 

“adjusting?” mark echoes with a laugh, finally properly locking his door. he shoves his keys into his pocket and begins walking down the building’s stairs. “i mean, i am korean.” 

_ “yeah, sure, but you were just in canada for five years,”  _ johnny says. _ “and you were in japan before that. have you finally decided to settle on a country?”  _

“i don’t know, maybe? i just… felt like coming to korea.” 

_ “oh, y’know what?”  _ johnny says.  _ “i was talking to yuta the other day, and i had completely forgot, but five years ago, didn’t you visit korea?”  _

mark stops walking. his eyes are drawn up to the sky, bright and void of clouds. there’s always a strange feeling that comes with reminders of the past -- or, rather, of the events surrounding what happened five years ago. the events of that day, of that part of his life in general, are blurry. 

but five years ago, there was something that he absolutely had to do, even if it meant flying to korea. 

“yeah,” he says, starting to walk again. “i don’t remember why anymore.” 

_ “a lot of that time’s blurry for me, too,”  _ johnny says.  _ “but did you really move all the way to korea just because you felt like it?”  _

“well…” mark thumbs absent-mindedly at the braided cord bracelet at his wrist. “i guess i felt like i could find something here.” 

johnny laughs.  _ “what does that mean?”  _

“i don’t know, dude,” mark says. “it’s just how i feel.” 

_ “alright, alright,”  _ johnny says, amused.  _ “to each their own, i guess. i hope you find what you’re looking for.”  _

“yeah,” mark murmurs. “me too.” 

it’s a normal day, like any other. for years, mark has carried this feeling of searching for something, until it became normal to him. 

but today, finally, the threads of fate are moving -- moving in a way they once did years ago, although mark no longer remembers that. 

indeed, mark has always been searching for something. 

_ for something, or…  _

a train passes by his own, and through the windows of these two trains, he makes eye contact with someone familiar. he should not recognize them, but he does -- he recognizes them like he’d recognize someone he’s known all his life. 

_ or someone.  _

the train doors open, and he is running. he is overtaken by a desperation that overcomes all his other emotions, and he knows that he must find them. that he has been searching for so long just for them. through streets, down stairs, past buildings, he runs, and his mind is full of memories of dreams and days spent waiting for someone he doesn’t know and of a voice -- a voice he does not remember hearing, but that he knows. 

but it doesn’t stop at one voice. he remembers one, and then another. until it is six voices echoing in his mind, like a song he heard a lifetime ago. and for all that he does not remember meeting these people, he knows them. 

and they are precious to him. 

he stops at the bottom of a set of stairs. there, at the top -- there he is. 

one step, then another. they walk towards each other, hesitant, but desperate. they stop in the middle, only a single step between them. 

“your bracelet --” mark starts. 

“it’s familiar, isn’t it?” the stranger says. 

“so are you,” mark says. 

there’s a moment of hesitation, a moment they both share. and the stranger says, “are you looking for someone?” 

mark smiles. “i think i’ve found them, actually. or at least, i’ve found one of them.” 

the stranger -- but, mark knows that’s not right. 

mark’s precious friend returns his smile. “come home,” he says. “we’ve been waiting for you.” 

somewhere inside time, gentle sunlight pours into a room. seven boys gather, smiles on their faces. regardless of what they remember, regardless of what they have lived through, they rest in the comfort of the knowledge that they will not let themselves be separated again. 

the red thread of fate reaches across boundaries, across lifetimes, across time itself. 

now, it gives seven boys a chance to start anew. 


End file.
